Nothing says, “Wipe out AIDS and poverty” like Band-Aids and a black-and-white cookie.
That’s what Bono’s $15 million nonprofit the ONE Campaign – which gives only a pittance of proceeds to its hunger and health causes – bombarded New York newsrooms with last week to get press for its push for billions in African AIDS funding from President Obama.
The items were part of a pricey pile of puzzling loot, which also included a $15 bag of Starbucks coffee, a $15 Moleskine leather notebook, a $20 water bottle and a plastic ruler.
The stash came in four, oversized shoe boxes, delivered one at a time via expensive messenger. The boxes were timed to arrive for the UN “Summit on the Millennium Development Goals,” which kicks off in Manhattan today.
Another container held the oversized cookie and water bottle in an odd pitch for funds for clean water and “sustainable sources of food.”
Poverty-stricken African kids live on less than $1.25 a day – “about the cost of the cookie in this box,” ONE contended.
The leather-bound journal and ruler urged education funding in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Starbucks brew – made with Ethiopian beans – came with a suggestion to drum up support for investing in African agriculture.
Charity watchdog Daniel Borochoff of the American Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago called the p.r. move a “risk.”
“There could be recipients – or donors – who might think that the money they spent could have instead been donated to help their cause,” he said.
Hunter countered that ONE “does advocacy work, not charity work.”
[b][size=“3”]ONE gives only a pittance in direct charitable support to its causes – something Borochoff said the average donor might not realize.
The Bono nonprofit took in $14,993,873 in public donations in 2008, the latest year for which tax records are available.
Of that, $184,732 was distributed to three charities, according to the IRS filing.
Meanwhile, more than $8 million was spent on executive and employee salaries.
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Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/poor_idea_bono_bsUzJMfT2mBJbqyXgp6YoO#ixzz10G6N3JnX
I hate having to defend Bono but that article is both incorrect and misleading in a number of critical areas:
They don’t take public donations. It is funded by philanthropists like Bill Gates. So nobody lost money except those who have contributed, many of whom are on the board.
They’re an advocacy group not a grant-giving group.
One have disputed other points but it’s a shitty enough reflection on journalism these days that the rest of the world took the NY Post article at face value and checked none of it.
did the glasnevin tour over the weekend- two things that struck me were why would o connell a unionist politican get such a prominent place & why is aherns parents in the republican plot
A shame but those of us who grew up in Dalkey understand tradition. I had thought years of hand holding of the Northsider would have given him some appreciation for the area.
