I have to be honest, I’d never heard of this supposed billion dollar charity out of Oklahoma.
There is a Canadian branch in Guelph founded in 2004, not to be confused with a BC organization also called Feed the Children which moved it’s head office to Toronto in the 1990′s.
The US operation fired it’s founder Friday.
In a statement, the charity’s board of directors said his dismissal was effective immediately.
His attorney said Jones will file a wrongful termination lawsuit. The attorney said Jones will ask a judge to either reinstate him or compensate him for the board’s breach of his employment contract.
The board did not disclose in its statement why Jones was fired. His attorney said Jones was dismissed over his decision last April to place hidden microphones in three executives’ offices.
A judge has ordered the charity directors not to use the organizations funds to cover their legal fees.
Feed the Children has about 6 lawsuits going since a power struggle began over a year ago.
There are about 200 employees. There has been a fair bit of chatter by a few people over at Charity Navigator for over a year asking CN to update it’s information, and there are a fair number of disparaging remarks under news items. (Charity Navigator updated it’s rating, thanks to a heads up from a commenter)
The Oklahoman has been covering the story for over a year and has a list of court documents and board meeting minutes.
There are issues of back taxes, an ousted board replaced by various ministers including Paul Osteen (Joel Osteen’s brother) the ousted board and fired executives court ordered brought back to the organization, family squabbles, aggressive fundraising, and wire tapping. That’s just in the past year. the organization has made the news  for various reasons (forged audits, Larry Jones son, theft etc) over the past several years.
Feed the Children (formerly Larry Jones International Ministries, Inc)Â was founded by Jones in 1979 and is listed as one of the top 10 private international charities in the US.
It has been called the most outrageous charity in America by The American Institute of Philanthropy.
This is what the current US website looks like.
Larry Jones is listed as Chairman of the board of directors for FTC Foundation Canada.
As an offside when I was looking at the Feed the Children (Guelph) tax return, one of the donees is listed as Crossroads Ministries, (common name for ministries). I clicked over to this.The amount is listed as 136,829.00. Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada Parkview Church (Guelph) was also another major donee. a major donor.
Ministry Watch has a donor alert out on the US operation, the entry hasn’t been updated lately.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy also has a list of articles about the US organization.
Update: Larry Jones filed his lawsuit for reinstatement yesterday.
He alleges his dismissal was “for reasons of personal malice and spite and not for any authorized cause.â€
…Jones is asking for “reinstatement of his position,†compensation for the lost value of his contract and for “dignitary harms,†and punitive damages against each director.
Thanks for letting me know about this…
I don’t want to paint the Canadian branch with the US power struggle but what I did see as I researched the Guelph branch was the same tactics of fundraising etc.
Fundamentalists have every right to set up parallel organizations, those that adhere to belief groups outside their circle (us/them) they are unlikely to give to or trust other groups.
I hope you’ll address this Mark, again I think you have much to offer. I’m interested in some of the creative interactions Feed the Children use to advance.
This reminds me of the Habitat founder dismissal, a visionary who couldn’t grasp why the board didn’t accept his inappropriate sexual harassment.
Feed the Children’s problems have been long term, contentious and self-destructive. I’m interested in understanding why founders will take their organization down rather than do what they started off setting up to do, which is help others and do what is best for those they serve and those they hire.
“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my father who is in heaven. (Math. 18:10)
How sweet and humble is a child, in our father’s sight.
“I’m interested in understanding why founders will take their organization down rather than do what they started off setting up to do, which is help others and do what is best for those they serve and those they hire.”
That’s an interesting question – I wonder if it is because they start out with impure or mixed motives, and the hidden selfish reasons start to become apparent after a while. Thinking about Solomon and the two women disputing over the baby – the one who really loved the child unselfishly, it’s true mother, was willing to give it up rather than see it cut in two. On the other hand the one who was more concerned with not losing the power struggle didn’t care as much about the life of the baby, and maybe was even vindictive enough to be glad to see the real mother lose out if the child died.
Actually, Charity Navigator did just update its rating of the charity a few weeks ago, they moved it UP from either a 2 or a 3 star charity to 4 stars. I’d be careful of the American Institute of Philanthropy. That guy has given them a poor rating for years, then Consumer Guide or Consumer Reports or some such well known magazine did an article using his ratings, then later apologized and said his rating was unfair for charities like this one because most of their “donations” are actually products from corporations that they turn around and distribute, and the AIP guy doesn’t include any of that in his calculations.
Otherwise, yeah, this charity has had nothing but problems for years because of its founder. It will be a lot better off without him.
There does seem to be a lot of founder problems, I noticed people asking Charity Navigator to upgrade their information.
I was aware of the Consumer Reports apology (May 2009) about product donations, but I can’t fault AIP for pointing out many of the products were not useable.
There is an article online from 1990 where Larry Jones and Save the Children got into a lawsuit over name similarities.
He is, to put it mildly bellicious, combative and a publicity hound.
Maybe those are traits which are needed to set up a charity, but don’t bode well for running it.
I’d like to know what goods or services were given to Crossroads, given the problems the US parent organization has had, it’s difficult to trust the Cdn branch.
Thanks for the heads up on Charity Navigator, ratings applies to Oklahoma, not international outlet performance.
For those interested here is how Charity Navigators rate:
http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=35
Feed the Children employees petition quotes from May 2009 The Oklahoman:
“We are in hell.”
“…During your tenure, Feed The Children maintained an atmosphere and reputation as a brutal workplace filled with infighting, poor business decisions, employee harassment from top-down management and a ghost Board of Directors who offered no governance or oversight. “
When an organisation begins to ‘get big’ so do its ideas. Then they begin to justify those ideas and then begin to justify the funds they need to ‘bring them forth’. Jesus was not part of an organisation man just loves them. Greed, at some point usually steps in and begins to take over with more greed that is needed to perpetuate the organisations growth. Then like many minsitries they begin to get flamboyant, proud of themselves swiftly followed by ‘we must have a private jet etc., People cough up the cash.
Jesus walked with only the fathers heart, we walk with much in ours.
In Uganda, a scam NGO called Feed the Children Larry Jones International Ministries was registered with the help of a minister and one of the top lawyers in goverment. Then i am reading Larry Jones was fired from FTC. Whi excatly is posing on their behalf in Uganda? Pse pple feel free to investigate!!!!!! A serious scam.