"Share Our Shoes" Founder Jennifer Pierce Probe Imperils the Shoe Charity

[KoKo]

(This is a disturbing article. I was just getting ready to donate to them. How does someone with her background (three mortgage service companies she "abandoned...because they were on shaky ground and now her charity which she says she's only paid $26,000 for re-selling shoes?) :-(

"Share our Shoes" founder imperils shoe charity

BY DAN KANE - [e-mail]


Over two years, Share our Shoes collected hundreds of thousands of pairs of shoes and provided them to disaster victims here and abroad, local low-income school children and the homeless.

Jennifer Pierce of Raleigh saw her nonprofit take off when a devastating earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010. She notified the media that she was putting together a shoe drive for the impoverished country, and the response helped generate more than 400,000 pairs of donated shoes.

But the media attention now has brought something else - a spotlight on Pierce.

She's a convicted felon and recovering drug addict who once ran three highly profitable mortgage services companies that she admits she abandoned after a state official told her they were on shaky legal ground.

Today, the nonprofit is in danger of closing as Pierce's past becomes more widely known and new issues with its operation surface.

Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/11/04/1616623/scrutiny-of-founder-imperils-shoe.html#ixzz1ckwXn6k3

[MADem]

1. This is distressing.

For sheer "money to the purpose," it is hard to beat the Salvation Army. They are intolerant in some ways, though.

That salary she is collecting is certainly not a sackcloth-and-ashes stipend, either, to say nothing of those expenses. This stinks.

IMO.

WNCN news report Monday said one church was troubled to hear a $5,000 donation would not go to Haiti, and Pierce confirmed a WTVD report on Wednesday that the nonprofit sold 100,000 pounds of shoes for $174,000. The buyer then resold those shoes in Africa.

Pierce said such reselling is common among nonprofits in the used shoe business; they would go out of business, she said, if they didn't resell some inventory to cover expenses.

She said her nonprofit's expenses are roughly $17,000 a month and she is the sole paid official, with a $1,200 weekly salary.

"What am I doing wrong?" Pierce asked.


Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/11/04/1616623/scrutiny-of-founder-imperils-shoe.html#ixzz1cl7DgiI9

[KoKo]

3. Agree...about SA...(even with some of their problems) and usually

donate to SA or local cat shelter's thrift shop, but saw the boxes around and thought it was worthwhile since it seemed such a good project for so many flood victims. And, since many here on DU had posted about it and had donated during Haiti.

[dtexdem]

2. Waiting for the other shoe to fall.

hadda be said

[KoKo]

4. ...1

[Laluchacontinua]

5. Seems to me that nearly every charity going is in some way a scam.

Either high salaries, spy v. spy sidelines, skimming the contributions, doling out the contributions with political ends in mind, using the donations to do feel-good stuff that doesn't really help anyone much -- it's always something.

I've gotten to the point where I start trying to figure out the scam from the get go whevever I read a charity puff piece.

However, now that i've read the article: if the facts are as stated, the only salary = $22K & the operation is running on $196K a year (which would include that salary, so $174K for all other expenses, which might include office space, mailings, computer, truck/gas/pick-up, rental space for donation boxes, volunteer recruitment & training....) -- it really doesn't sound like it's so far out of line to me.

Selling the donations, hate to say, is typical in this kind of business. All the majors (Goodwill, Salvation Army) do the same thing -- bundle lots & sell them to ship overseas for resale. Or so I've read.

The only thing that raised my eyebrows was someone who bought the products making her a personal loan.