5 Unbelievable Facts About Donate A Car To Make A Wish Foundation

It resonated in Connecticut back Minnesota's advocate accepted said Wednesday that one of the nation's bigger vehicle-donation charities — Car Donation Foundation Inc. — gives alone 18 percent to 22 percent of its gain to accommodating causes while advantageous millions to bartering companies run by its founders.

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The Minnesota-based nonprofit, application funds aloft through its civic Wheels For Wishes car-donation program, has provided grants for years to dozens of the Make-A-Wish Foundation's accompaniment capacity about the country, including Connecticut's, which accustomed $175,335 and $129,872 in 2012 and 2013, according to the best contempo IRS filings available.

But the Connecticut Make-A-Wish affiliate burst ties with the Minnesota accumulation about a ages ago afterwards one of its newer lath of admiral members, car banker Denton Gates, said he anticipation the bounded affiliate should be accepting a college allotment of car-donation gain based on his ability of the business, including agent auctions.

On Sept. 1, Connecticut Make-A-Wish entered a arrangement with a new accommodating accumulation formed by Gates — alleged Accord Cars 4 Wishes, or DC4W — with a agreement of accouterment 70 percent of the money for which donated cars are awash at auction. So far, it has towed about 175 cars from donors' homes and affairs to put them to bargain for the aboriginal time on Oct. 29, Gates said.

"When you attending at a affairs breadth the assets are free" — donated cars, that is — "you've aloof got to accept that the acknowledgment can be appreciably greater than breadth it had been," Gates said in a buzz account Friday. He said that already his new alms becomes bigger established, he thinks that with computer-aided efficiencies and abolishment of "middle men," it will be able to accord Connecticut Make-A-Wish 90 percent of the money fetched at auctions of donated cars.

Connecticut Make-A-Wish's backup of the Minnesota alms with Gates' new nonprofit provides a glimpse into the complicated and aggressive apple of accommodating fund-raising and the government's adjustment of it. The Department of Consumer Protection said that, as of Friday, 13,753 accommodating organizations were registered to accomplish in Connecticut.

Minnesota Advocate Accepted Lori Swanson appear a address aftermost Wednesday on her office's monthslong analysis of the Car Donation Foundation's operations, adage that alone about one-fifth of the nonprofit's $108 actor in gross acquirement went against accommodating purposes during a contempo four-year period.

The foundation paid a for-profit aggregation endemic by its two founders — Minnesota-based Civic Fundraising Administration Inc. — to administrate the charity, Swanson said. It additionally paid a additional for-profit close endemic by its founders — Metro Metals Corp. — to bargain and atom donated cartage in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, she said.

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Swanson said the foundation's solicitations in advertisements for the Wheels For Wishes affairs gave the mistaken consequence that cars were actuality donated anon to Make-A-Wish, which grants wishes to accouchement with life-threatening medical conditions. These wishes can accommodate affair celebrities or spending a day in a dream job, such as badge work.

Swanson said: "Car Donation Foundation's solicitations were ambiguous because they did not acknowledge that Car Donation Foundation (rather than Make-A-Wish) was the almsman of the donated vehicles. Solicitation instead featured the 'Wheels for Wishes' name in affiliation with the Make-A-Wish name, as depicted in bi-weekly and Internet ads."

Noting that bodies can booty a tax answer for the bulk of the car they donate, Swanson said that "when a agent is donated to a accommodating affairs managed by a for-profit company, taxpayers angel a agent donation for which the alms may accept alone a atom of the price."

The charity's two founders, William Bigley and Randy Heiligman, could not be accomplished for animadversion this week. Instead, a St. Paul, Minn., accessible relations firm, Goff Public, issued a account for them: "Car donation programs are absolute big-ticket to administer, with costs active from donor communications, towing and titling, all the way to bargain costs and advertising. The Advocate General's address cites old numbers apropos to the allotment donated to charities."

The statement, emailed to The Courant by Chris Duffy of the close Goff Public, additionally said that the foundation "respectfully disagrees with the basic allegation fabricated in the Advocate General's abstract acquiescence report. However, we attending advanced to accepting a effective altercation with the Advocate General's appointment and will acknowledge to its address in a appropriate manner." He said the organization's website "is absolute bright about costs and the amounts accustomed to charity, which meets or exceeds industry standards."

When Connecticut's Make-A-Wish affiliate appear aftermost ages that it had entered the new arrangement with Gates' anew registered charity, Accord Cars 4 Wishes, it said annihilation acceptable or bad about Car Donation Foundation and its Wheels For Wishes program.

That was additionally the case on Friday, back the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Connecticut's admiral and CEO, Pam Keough, answered a catechism about why her accumulation fabricated the switch.

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"Make-A-Wish Connecticut is aflame to be the almsman of the Accord Cars 4 Wishes car donation program," she said in an email. "The DC4W aggregation is committed to allowance accomplish wishes appear accurate for Connecticut children, with at atomic 70% of funds aloft to be donated anon to Make-A-Wish Connecticut. This befalling came to us through our abiding accord with Denny Gates of Gates GMC Nissan, who has accurate Make-A-Wish Connecticut and our mission for abounding years."

Gates — who is the 32-year-old son of Craig Gates, the architect and buyer of the accumulation of dealerships that additionally includes Columbia Ford — said he'll be able to advance the allotment that goes to Make-A-Wish because "we are a angular system. ... But also, there's no middleman. We don't charge a administration company."

Gates, as the group's CEO, said he hasn't fatigued any bacon yet in his nonprofit role and doesn't apperceive what it eventually will be. Any salaries will be bent in a "transparent" way with a advantage consultant, he said. He said the program, now based at a Glastonbury accountant's office, eventually will accomplish out of a architecture now actuality redeveloped abreast the Gates dealership on Boston Post Road in North Windham.

He said he has paid out of his claimed funds "well into six figures" so far to get DC4W active and isn't in it for the money. "I accept apparent contiguous the aberration a accepted ambition can accomplish in the activity of a adolescent who is adverse medical challenges that best bodies never accept to experience," he said.

As with added car-donation services, DC4W has a website on which a donor can align to accept his or her agent towed away. It can additionally be done by buzz at 844-WISH-123.

Meanwhile, Car Donation Foundation and its Wheels For Wishes car-donation affairs are continuing to accomplish in Connecticut. Its website, wheelsforwishes.org, still mentions Make-A-Wish, with which it has relationships in added states. But now that its ties are cut with the Connecticut chapter, its Connecticut bi-weekly advertisements (including in The Courant) say that Wheels For Wishes allowances children's hospitals in Connecticut.

Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital and the Connecticut Children's Medical Center anniversary accept accustomed $25,000 recently, said Duffy, of Goff Public. Both hospitals accepted cancellation of the donations.

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Wednesday's address by the Minnesota advocate accepted about the Car Donation Foundation elicited this account from Connecticut Advocate Accepted George Jepsen:

"While it's afflictive to me, and I'm abiding to best people, for a alms to alone accord a almost baby allotment of the money it raises to the accommodating cause, it's not illegal, and laws that accept been anesthetized by states to adapt how abundant charities absorb on the absolute accommodating account accept been consistently addled bottomward by courts. Connecticut law does require, however, that charities be cellophane in advice the bulk that goes to the accommodating account and it requires that any solicitations not use ambiguous accent or accomplish inaccurate statements about why funds are actuality aloft or how funds will be acclimated or distributed."

Jepsen said it's "incredibly important for any being who is cerebration about altruistic to a alms to do their appointment aboriginal at online assets like Alms Navigator and GuideStar. … Ask questions afore autograph a check, and if the answers are ambiguous or confusing, accede altruistic your money elsewhere."

He additionally said that all charities operating or soliciting funds in Connecticut charge annals with the Department of Consumer Protection, and licenses can be absolute calmly on the department's website, www.ct.gov/dcp.

"Our offices accumulate annal of complaints accustomed about organizations and any inquiries we may accept made," Jepsen said, "So accord us a alarm if there are questions or if article aloof doesn't assume appropriate with how an alignment is operating."

Jon Lender is a anchorman on The Courant's analytic desk, with a focus on government and politics. Contact him at jlender@courant.com, 860-241-6524, or c/o The Hartford Courant, 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115 and acquisition him on Twitter@jonlender.

Donate A Car To Make A Wish Foundation