As a result of Madoff's Ponzi scheme, several major charitable foundations have collapsed. Now the groups they supported, already hurting from the economic crisis, have been sent reeling as the grants they relied on evaporated overnight.
They have no one else to turn to:
The issues the [JEHT] Foundation addressed received very limited philanthropic support and the loss of the foundation's funding and leadership will cause significant pain and disruption of the work for many dedicated people and organizations. The Foundation's programs have met with significant success in recent years - promoting change in these critical areas in partnership with government and the non-profit sector. Hopefully others will look closely at this work and consider supporting it going forward.
JEHT's outgoing President, Robert Crane
But groups depending on JEHT said the foundation--which has made about 500 grants during its lifetime--was rare in its willingness to fund innovative efforts to reform state juvenile justice systems, a cause few philanthropies tackle. "The number of foundations nationwide working in this area you can probably count on one hand," says Mark Soler, executive director of the Center for Children's Law & Policy.
Do the right thing
The people now in danger of losing services are turning out to be the collateral damage of the Madoff bombshell. "What I've seen in my business is the incredible power one person has to make an incredible difference," says Abby Anderson, executive director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, which got about a quarter of its funding through JEHT. "This is the flip side of that."
Like you, they had no idea who Madoff was until last week:
Few of the people who benefited from the foundation's funding had heard of Bernard Madoff before last week, or imagined that his alleged fraud could unravel their good work. But unless other donors step in to fill the void, Bob Fleischner will no longer be flying to places like Texas, Michigan, and Alabama to advocate for locked-up juveniles. "These kids aren't going to have any clue that [Madoff] had anything to do with this," he says.
It's time to rally the troops and flood a wave of donations to the nonprofits and their life-changing work. We can't do much about the economy, but we can keep these hard-working groups off the list of Madoff's victims.