Please Give Donations to the Victims of Haiti

[Mike Cruz]

Click Here
For CNN's List of Charities to make Donations for the People of Haiti

[draggar]

There are a lot of these going around - I hope they are all legit.

[Mike Cruz]

turn on the TV to any major news channel, this is Wyclef Jean's charity. Verify it's legitimacy here: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/?hpt=tv ~ it's on the list...

[draggar]

After 9-11 even the major media networks told people how to donate in ways that turned out to be scams. The sad thing is that there is no sure-fire way to know 100%.

From the Red Cross:
http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/...0089f0870aRCRD

Countless requests have come from people wanting to help. The best way to do that is to make a donation to the American Red Cross International Response Fund at redcross.org or by calling 1-800-RED-CROSS. Donors can designate their gifts to Haiti relief. Donations to the International Response Fund allows the American Red Cross to respond to global emergencies and disasters.
In addition, several hundred thousand people have chosen to make a mobile donation. Donors can text "Haiti" to 90999 on their cell phone to send a $10 donation to support Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti. The mobile giving effort raised more than $3 million by Thursday morning, and all money raised goes to support Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.

I'd tend to believe form them more since they're the ones running it.


(I'm not saying yours is a scam - people just can't be too careful.

[Mike Cruz]

One, it's not mine. Two, you can choose whatever charity you feel most comfortable donating to, it doesn't have to be this one, I provided a list from CNN. I have donated to both this one (Yele, run by Wyclef Jean) and Clinton Foundation.

Not really sure what you are freaking out about, either Donate or don't...

[DNWizardX9]

The corporations can take out a administrative fee too

[Poker]

Posted below in a diff thread yesterday:

Red cross has set up an easy way to donate if you can't give much. If everyone did, it would be huge.

Text "Haiti" to 90999.

Doing so will automatically donate $10 for Haitian rescue and recover efforts and will be billed on your bill.

[draggar]

One, it's not mine. Two, you can choose whatever charity you feel most comfortable donating to, it doesn't have to be this one, I provided a list from CNN. I have donated to both this one (Yele, run by Wyclef Jean) and Clinton Foundation.

Not really sure what you are freaking out about, either Donate or don't...

Now that it's coming out that it's Wyclef's charity - I'm more likely to believe it with someone well known saying "Yes, this is mine" - it gives better transparency as opposed to no one coming forward and saying this.

Also, American Express, Vica, and Master Card have all agreed to waive their "swipe fee" for all CC based donations to the Red Cross for earthquake donations.

I'm not freaking out, I just don't want to see people donate money to scams which always pop up. We saw it after 9-11, after the hurricanes (mainly Katrina), and after the 2004 tsunami.

Snopes also confirmed both ways to donate though text messages as legit.

[Mike Cruz]

Sorry if I freaked out, lol. Everywhere I posted this everyone made comments about this being shady and even accusing me of setting up a fake charity, etc. and it pissed me off that they would make these comments without first at least trying to verify its accuracy. I know its not the nicest looking website in the world.

This isn't some charity Wyclef popped up yesterday or the day before, he has been supporting it for a very long time and now is really when he is pushing it when they need it 100 times more than they did before.

I would really like to go over there and give my help in any way possible. It is crazy whats going on right now.

[HasRob]

The Haiti earthquake has already triggered hundreds of thousands of donations to musician Wyclef Jean’s charitable foundation, which expects to raise upwards of $1 million a day in the disaster’s wake. However, Internal Revenue Service records show the group has a lackluster history of accounting for its finances, and that the organization has paid the performer and his business partner at least $410,000 for rent, production services, and Jean’s appearance at a benefit concert. Though the Wyclef Jean Foundation, which does business as Yele Haiti Foundation, was incorporated 12 years ago–and has been active since that time–the group only first filed tax returns in August 2009. That month, the foundation provided the IRS with returns covering calendar years 2005, 2006, and 2007–the only periods for which it has publicly provided a glimpse at its financial affairs. In 2006, Jean’s charity reported contributions of $1 million, the bulk of which came from People magazine in exchange for the first photos of a pregnant Angelina Jolie (the actress reportedly directed that the publication’s payment go to Jean’s charity, not her personally). As seen on the following pages from the foundation’s 2006 tax return, the group paid $31,200 in rent to Platinum Sound, a Manhattan recording studio owned by Jean and Jerry Duplessis, who, like Jean, is a foundation board member. A $31,200 rent payment was also made in 2007 to Platinum Sound. The rent, tax returns assure, “is priced below market value.” The recording studio also was paid $100,000 in 2006 for the “musical performance services of Wyclef Jean at a benefit concert.” That six-figure payout, the tax return noted, “was substantially less than market value.” The return, of course, does not address why Jean needed to be paid to perform at his own charity’s fundraiser. Read More…

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive...02wyclef1.html

[Mike Cruz]

The Haiti earthquake has already triggered hundreds of thousands of donations to musician Wyclef Jean’s charitable foundation, which expects to raise upwards of $1 million a day in the disaster’s wake. However, Internal Revenue Service records show the group has a lackluster history of accounting for its finances, and that the organization has paid the performer and his business partner at least $410,000 for rent, production services, and Jean’s appearance at a benefit concert. Though the Wyclef Jean Foundation, which does business as Yele Haiti Foundation, was incorporated 12 years ago–and has been active since that time–the group only first filed tax returns in August 2009. That month, the foundation provided the IRS with returns covering calendar years 2005, 2006, and 2007–the only periods for which it has publicly provided a glimpse at its financial affairs. In 2006, Jean’s charity reported contributions of $1 million, the bulk of which came from People magazine in exchange for the first photos of a pregnant Angelina Jolie (the actress reportedly directed that the publication’s payment go to Jean’s charity, not her personally). As seen on the following pages from the foundation’s 2006 tax return, the group paid $31,200 in rent to Platinum Sound, a Manhattan recording studio owned by Jean and Jerry Duplessis, who, like Jean, is a foundation board member. A $31,200 rent payment was also made in 2007 to Platinum Sound. The rent, tax returns assure, “is priced below market value.” The recording studio also was paid $100,000 in 2006 for the “musical performance services of Wyclef Jean at a benefit concert.” That six-figure payout, the tax return noted, “was substantially less than market value.” The return, of course, does not address why Jean needed to be paid to perform at his own charity’s fundraiser. Read More…

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive...02wyclef1.html

I just saw that on another forum. That is pretty pathetic, but I have to say... if you think this is the only charity doing this... hrm, you are quite nieve, but that doesn't make it right.