Foundation not ready to give fundraising totals for victims

The Broward Education Foundation isn’t ready to tell the public how much money it has collected for victims and families of the Parkland school shooting outside of the $2.7 million accrued through its GoFundMe page.

Despite assurances in the days after the tragedy that it would be transparent in its stewardship of the Stoneman Douglas Victims’ Fund, the foundation is declining to reveal the amount of money collected so far or provide a list of those donations and names of donors.

Numerous small businesses throughout South Florida have announced fundraisers and pledged to send proceeds to the foundation-run fund. They include Hoffman’s Chocolates, which set a goal to raise $15,000 from sales of a batch of specialty Oreos, and local pub chain Tap 42, which announced it would donate proceeds from sales of a special cocktail from March 1-14.

The foundation has received “hundreds of different donations” since the shooting, Pejay Ryan, director of marketing, said Wednesday. Ryan said those donations have been logged, but she refused to release that log to the Sun Sentinel. “I’m not going to release any numbers or anything until our board has taken a look at it,” she said.

Unless the foundation releases its list, donors have no way of knowing whether the money they spent at a benefit concert, lemonade stand, t-shirt or craft sale or other fundraiser is going where organizers said it would.

Meanwhile, with distribution of funds still months away, donations to the foundation’s GoFundMe page have slowed since the days immediately following the shooting. On Feb. 21, a week after the tragedy, the foundation’s fund had amassed about $1.9 million from nearly 27,000 donors. In the 14 days since, that total has increased by about $800,000 from another 6,000 donors.

The GoFundMe page lists the names of donors and amounts donated, although donors can choose to be anonymous.

Jeff Dion, director of the National Compassion Fund, which the foundation enlisted to provide advice on how to distribute donations to victims and families, said Wednesday that the foundation is within its rights to withhold the list of donors and amounts given.

“I don’t know if that’s relevant,” Dion said, when asked if the information should be made available to the public. “And as a regular practice, [charities registered as] 501(c)(3) organizations don’t need to disclose that.”

Dion said the question of whether to release donor lists and amounts “has never been an issue” in previous fundraising efforts steered by the National Compassion Fund, which include the 2016 attack on patrons at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the attack on concertgoers in Las Vegas last December.

Organizations raising and distributing funds after tragedies are obligated to release totals of the amounts raised, as well as the protocols they develop for distributing those funds, but usually in the form of an audit after the donation period is complete and money is distributed, Dion said.

Asked why organizations should not be obligated to release donors’ names and amounts, Dion said that “some donors want to be anonymous” and that if public release of names and donations were required, it should be disclosed to donors ahead of time to give them the opportunity to withhold their names.

Some donors want to be identified, often through news releases announcing their gifts, and that’s OK, he said.

The foundation’s fund benefiting victims and families is separate from another major fundraising effort associated with the Stoneman Douglas tragedy — the drive to support students attending the “March for our Lives” rally March 24 in Washington, D.C.

That effort has raised $3.1 million from 38,154 donors through its GoFundMe page. On the page, organizer Cameron Kasky stated that half of the funds raised would go to the March for our Lives Action Fund and the other half would be donated to the victims through the Broward Education Foundation’s fund. Donations to the action fund, however, are not tax deductible, because it’s a 501(c)(4), a type of organization operated to promote social welfare, according to the Internal Revenue Service. The campaign to fund the march has also generated large donations from celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and George Clooney.

A public relations firm hired to represent the Parkland “March for our Lives” organizers did not immediately respond to requests for information about how money raised for that effort is being used. The National Compassion Fund was created in 2013 following complaints by relatives and people injured in mass killings at a theater in Aurora, Colo., Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., and a 2007 attack at Virginia Tech University.

Those survivors complained about delays by administrators in releasing funds, as well as unnecessary bureaucracy before they could collect any of the donations.

Dion said the National Compassion Fund advises community-based donation funds to appoint oversight boards of local civic and business leaders, then develop protocols spelling out how funds will be spent.

Input from the public — including potential beneficiaries of the funds — is then sought and considered before the protocols are finalized, he said. Dion said it would not be appropriate for potential beneficiaries to serve on the oversight board. “That would be like sitting on a jury in your own court case,” he said.

Ryan, of the Broward Education Foundation, said she could not yet say when the foundation’s board plans to appoint its steering committee.

But Dion said he expected the steering committee to be named next week, based on recent conversations with foundation officials. Committee members will then begin work to develop a distribution formula, he said.

The money is given with no strings attached, Dion said. “If they want to use it to pay their rent, or pay medical bills, create a scholarship or build a memorial, that’s up to them.”