Who would Jesus dispossess for a lousy buck?

Recently, I was having coffee with a young friend. My young friend was seeking both advice and connections. My friend was perplexed. He had spent some $8000 on lawyers, consultants and filing fees to start a Not for Profit and he didn't yet have enough donations for it to be "self sustaining".

So, I asked the young man "What's your Not for Profit about?" He said "Feeding homeless people." Soooo I asked, with a slight chuckle, "Well how many sandwiches can you make for eight grand?"

My young friend seemed confused. I explained to my young friend that decades ago I volunteered for a Not for Profit in Hollywood. We had a suicide prevention hot line, provided three meals a day and housing for at least sixty people every night, did free drug rehab, rescued hookers from pimps and got their lives turned around, and on Wednesday night we distributed several hundred sandwiches.

On Wednesday mornings Restaurants, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, local Churches and mostly private individuals dropped groceries off. On Wednesday afternoon the staff made as many sandwiches as we could with the groceries. On Wednesday night we distributed hundreds of those sandwiches on Hollywood and Santa Monica Boulevards to every hungry homeless and hooking person we could find. No paid Executive Director, no paid staff, no four color mailer, no paid fund raiser or grant writer. Just "What would Jesus do?" We used to talk about the fact that if every church, temple and synagogue  in America made and distributed 100 sandwiches once a week, there would be no starving hungry people in America. Alas, I was not confused about my young friend. His interest was not in feeding homeless people, for him this was just a "hook".

In America there are millions of Churches and Not for Profit organizations that receive property tax, parsonage tax, income tax exemptions. Their donors receive income tax breaks. In 1937 the U.S. Supreme Court found that these tax exceptions are given for "good works" Churches and Not for Profits do in feeding hungry people, providing health care for the sick, sheltering homeless people, and ameliorating the effects of privation and poverty. Since the 1950's they have been technically not allowed to be directly involved in politics.

But Churches and Not for Profits are NOT doing these good works. They are busily building real estate and investment portfolios and building payrolls of people who mostly support the institution itself, rather than serve the needy.

 My young friend was upset not because feeding hungry people was something he was being prevented from doing, but because he was not yet able to become a salaried Executive Director, consider lunching to be "work", have a staff , free car, and live a luxury lifestyle of ease and moral superiority, on the backs of poor people. Needless to say, he left our meeting with no new connections and the advice to go to Super King Market, buy a bag of groceries, and find some people to give them away to. He left very sad. The greedy motivation of my young friend, and the lavish life of many Not for Profit Executive Directors and staff, while achieving little, if any, of their mission, have become common in the Church and Not for Profit world.

One Pasadena Church is so dominant in political issues that last year when several Altadenan's called Unions asking for help in fighting the opening of a local Walmart, they were told that the Union organized ALL of there political efforts in the San Gabriel Valley though one Pasadena Church. Several Unions claimed they would not work with any activists who were not under the direction, influence, supervision and control of this particular Pasadena Church. This particular Pasadena Church recently purchased a Altadena not for profit facility that had for 100 years provided housing and healthcare for old indigent people form the Altadena area. That Altadena Not for Profit, run by godless humanist had adhered to the tenants of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, until the Pasadena Church took it over. The particular Pasadena Church tore down the buildings, left the land fallow for five years, and is about to build over 300 luxury retirement villas for wealthy people from all over America. Because ownership will be retained by the Church, no property tax will be paid. There will be no services provided for Pasadena's or Altadena's indigent poor people. I guess that Pasadena Church's Gospel goes something like "What old poor unhealthy people would Jesus dispossess to make a lousy buck?" This is not uncommon. Churches all over America are dishonoring the life and Gospel of Jesus Christ in this kind of greedy, despicable, Hypocritical, and may I say Satanic, salary serving careerist manner.

We need a change. tax breaks for Churches and Not for Profits must be DEEDS tested. The majority of funds raised must be expended directly on the mission of feeding, housing, clothing the poor, drug rehabilitation, real job training, re entering prisoners to society, tending the sick, ill and dying and relieving the conditions of poverty. Every Citizen and for profit corporation is being taxed more than they would be, more than their fair share, because religious institutions and Not for Profits are getting a free ride. That would be OK were they serving the functions they get the free ride for, but in the main, they are not, and we are all also being taxed to fulfill those functions through government. So we outside of the not for profit world are paying at least twice.

Oh that wonderful all volunteer Not for Profit I volunteered for in Hollywood? Our founder and Executive Director fell in love and got married. He needed a job and needed to hand off our not for profit to others. It was difficult for him, a very reserved person, to glad hand enough to raise our $50,000 a year budget, manage our staff, and actually do redemptive work himself. He was exhausted. We found a International Not for Profit that promised us the world in the funding they would bring to bear to accomplish the mission. They got our donor list, fired all the volunteer staff one afternoon, closed down all operations the next, and with four color glossy print materials raise millions of dollars a year on doing good works in Hollywood. They have no operations there, not a dime raised by them is feeding, clothing, housing a single homeless kid, rescuing a hooker, or preventing a suicide. they raised almost three million dollars through our old organizations name last year. Yes, that is painful to type. They are basically stealing 3 million dollars a year from poor people, and doing it with a name that used to serve them well.

The Not for Profit industry needs to become accountable and brought to heel. The gravy train of high salaries, and questionable, if any deeds, must come to an end.