Talk:Foundation for New Era Philanthropy

2006 comments

Westwood Endowment, Indianapolis, $2.8 million (less than $280,000) What is that supposed to mean? S Sepp 13:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Good question. I wrote the original list years ago. My recollection is that some of the organizations that lost money in the scam wore more than one hat; they put money in as potential recipients, to be matched by others, and additional money as "donors" themselves. In the end, they typically lost all of this. The amounts in parentheses indicate money lost as donors (I think). I think the courts may have repaid creditors at different rates depending on which category they fell into, so rosters of creditors were precise about how much money was lost in each of these categories, even if by a single firm. I would have to dig through old court records or newspaper articles to be certain. If you check versions of the page prior to a "trimming" by an editor named "Kingboyk" on March 25, you will see a much more complete list of those hurt.Uucp 15:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

The original article had a serious POV tone, suggesting this could all be chalked up to gullible religious fanatics. While Christian charities were involved (no surprise as the majority of giving is from such sources), many many major 'secular' organizations were also stung. The article also managed to miss a major player: Prudential Securities ultimately paid an $18 million fine for its part. I've modified the article to correct these omissions. Mr Pete 21:26, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Further Questions

The discussion page did not have a way to leave comments. A few questions, please. From what I know, that while many of those gullible organizations were in fact in Philadelphia, virtually all major Christian organizations around the US, were victims. The article states that most were in Philadelphia.

Then, Mr Bennett, could hardly be called a Christian, no matter what terminology or lingo he used. I hope this can please be corrected, as it makes Christians look bad. In some cases it can be understood, surely, but I have never read anything which secures his Christianity, only that he pretended to be one.

Then, from what I understand, to this day, there remains nearly $400M completely unaccounted for.

Finally, if you ever can come up with the complete list of Christian "ministries" which foolishly lost money in this, I would be grateful. I think they carefully got all such info off the internet, to save face. I have even contacted the library of Philadelphia and other sources, but no one seems to know. When it was first revealed, it gave the names of those "ministries", but I have since forgotten the list. I would love to have a complete list.

Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bellevue2010 (talk • contribs) 14:56, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

An early version of this page gave a long list of the parties that lost money, and approximations of the amount lost. A later editor was offended by the predominance of christian organizations on the list and removed it. I think you can see his reasoning explained above. Uucp (talk) 21:32, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Well can someone edit the article and put the organizations back? And then lock the article or something so it will stop being vandalized by angry Christians? Chazbraz (talk) 19:09, 20 October 2011 (UTC)