About a week ago I wrote about this story in The Nonprofit Quarterly: “Group Uses Fictitious Children to Boost Fundraising: Poverty Porn?”

I guess the title itself suggests that publication’s verdict!

Our commenters were more tolerant.

Said Chip Heartfield: “It is not clear if the stories are composites or represent one child whose real name is not used for the obvious reasons. As long as they are true, not sure it makes much of a difference. But it seems that CNN was there to do a hatchet job – or at the least is woefully ignorant when it comes to reading financial reports on fundraising revenue vs assets. I have no connection with St. Joseph’s but unless there is some missing context, it seems like they are getting beat up unfairly…”

Said Mary Cahalane: “I agree, Chip. If the stories are true, I don’t care what you call the child. In fact, I think it’s quite common to use a false name – just because they need help doesn’t mean a child needs to give up her privacy. If the stories are fudged, that’s another thing altogether.

“And yes, it sounds like a journalist off on a mission, without bothering to understand enough about either charity or the situation.”

Said Steve Koepke: “If your mission helps someone in dire need and you tell that story but change the individual’s name and perhaps alter some other subtle details to shield the identity of the individual or family but use the story to illustrate both the serious situation and how the donor’s gifts are needed or used to help that situation how can that be construed as “fiction” or “made up”?

“If real people are helped in real situations as described in the fundraising literature I cannot see anyway that can be construed as ‘deceptive’!”

Says Adrian Salmon: “…this isn’t deception … There are real children. Maybe the charity should have had a disclaimer somewhere in their materials that said they used real stories but changed names and exact circumstances to protect childrens’ identities.”

I agree with all of the above.

But The Nonprofit Quarterly has a bone it won’t let go of.

Their ‘update’ on the first story is titled: “St Joseph’s Halts Fundraising Scheme But Admits No Wrongdoing”.

Another loaded headline, for a story whose first sentence terms St Joseph’s fundraising approach “an ethically questionable ‘poverty porn’ scheme”.

This second story reports an exchange with St Joseph’s president, Michael Tyrell: “When prompted to explain whether the children quoted in the mailings were real children, Tyrell said, “Those are real stories, but it would be hard to pin them on any one child. We put right on there, ‘the child’s name has been changed to protect the children.’ Those are unfortunate and true stories.”

Unless The Nonprofit Quarterly can establish that St Joseph’s is misusing funds or indeed the problems it claims to address do not, then I say to the publication: Find a real fundraising ‘deception’ to address. How about looking into made-up ‘matching gifts’?!

But you can read the stories and make up your own mind.

Now to the real crux of my post.

Our US readers are about to begin a long Thanksgiving weekend. In the mythology familiar to most Americans, the story behind this celebration has to do with grateful beleaguered Pilgrims thanking the Native Americans who helped them survive. But as with all mythology, the full story is a bit different — see here for a ‘tame’ version; here for a more startling one.

In any event, what today’s Native Americans have got in return is movingly depicted in this six minute ABC News report done by Diane Sawyer, titled: “Hidden America: Children of the Plains”.

Please, take six minutes and watch this report over your holiday. If it doesn’t remind you of what you should be thankful for, well …

As far as I’m concerned, so long as St Joseph’s Indian School is doing what it claims, it can’t possibly empty enough comfortable wallets to satisfy me. I call it reparations.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Tom

P.S. And Roger says: Amen!

And he and I are off for the holiday tomorrow.