"If I Were President" -- Wyclef Jean
Today I read an article about Wyclef Jean's popular run for president in Haiti. Although the author praises the voter turnout rates Wyclef could bring to the rubble covered country (less than 10% of eligible adults voted in the 2009 elections), The Economist sites Wyclef's charity as reason for concern; he has used his foundation, Yéle Haiti, to expensively book himself for fundraising concerts and to purchase pricey advertisement airtime from the television station he owns. Yéle Haiti recirculated funds right back into Wyclef's pockets.
During my senior year at Michigan, Steven Ross donated $100 million to rebuild the business school on campus. Like Wyclef, this was not an unconditional charitable offering from Mr. Ross, now owner of the Miami Dolphins. The commercial real-estate mogul included provisions that the university must contract Ross's own construction companies for the work. After the $100 million tax write off, the "donation" came right back onto the books of Ross's business and boosted his company's earnings. How much do you think his stock value went up as a result of this move?
Even working with missionaries on a clean water initiative in Bolivia, I witnessed "God fearing men" ask churches to fund their NGO, while they separately lobbied for their own salaries. The top two guys running the show each earned more than the entire budget for building water wells.
Are these isolated incidents of greedy individuals or is this the sad reality of charitable contributions? I fear that all too often, people abuse philaythropologic funds, their tax break, and their legal privileges. It appears like some individuals are milking other's sympathies to encourage them to donate "free money," which these wealthy "philanthropists" then use for their own benefit. Is the "there's no selfless gift" mentality, coupled with the constant drive to find legal loopholes in business, really inhibiting people from nobly supporting a cause? I would like to believe the answer is "no," but this might just be a sad byproduct of the capitalist world we live in.
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