This Player No Philanthropist
One of my regular readers asked me for my "expert" opinion on this story about professional basketball player Rashard Lewis's foundation.
After looking at the article and the tax records behind Lewis's foundation, I can tell you that my expert opinion would be the same as that of your mother, your barber, or the guy who cleans your gutters. And my opinion is this: Lewis should be embarrassed. Lewis, like a lot of athletes, has a foundation, and Lewis, like a lot of athletes, has no clue about it. He doesn't know what the group's goals are. He doesn't know who's on his board of directors. He doesn't even really know what his group does or funds. This isn't even worthy of being called "vanity philanthropy." It's just vanity.
One other interesting aspect of this story, however, is the timing of it. Rashard Lewis played for the Seattle Sonics for the last nine years. This summer, he spurned the team to sign a free-agent contract with the Orlando Magic. And two months after that, an article comes out in the Seattle paper about what a lousy foundation Lewis runs. I checked and didn't find a single story about the foundation during Lewis's 9-year tenure in Seattle.
After looking at the article and the tax records behind Lewis's foundation, I can tell you that my expert opinion would be the same as that of your mother, your barber, or the guy who cleans your gutters. And my opinion is this: Lewis should be embarrassed. Lewis, like a lot of athletes, has a foundation, and Lewis, like a lot of athletes, has no clue about it. He doesn't know what the group's goals are. He doesn't know who's on his board of directors. He doesn't even really know what his group does or funds. This isn't even worthy of being called "vanity philanthropy." It's just vanity.
One other interesting aspect of this story, however, is the timing of it. Rashard Lewis played for the Seattle Sonics for the last nine years. This summer, he spurned the team to sign a free-agent contract with the Orlando Magic. And two months after that, an article comes out in the Seattle paper about what a lousy foundation Lewis runs. I checked and didn't find a single story about the foundation during Lewis's 9-year tenure in Seattle.
Labels: NBA, Orlando Magic, Rashard Lewis, Seattle Sonics
posted by Trent Stamp at 8:19 AM
15 Comments:
Since when are you qualified to given an "expert" opinion about someone's foundation? Aren't you the same guy who thinks TIAA-CREF is a tax-exempt organization, when in fact they're not, and no one (not even TIAA-CREF) has ever said they are?
NY Times, August 15, 2007: "The marketer is TIAA-CREF, which is making a significant change in its advertising that plays up its status as a nonprofit organization."
thanks, trent, for looking into that. i was interested and i know you're an expert! no haters on the blog! go read sean hannity or something!
What TIAA-CREF means is that they're a "not for profit." They're not claiming to be tax-exempt, on account of the fact they're not. (Ever thought of actually contacting someone at TIAA-CREF to clear this matter up?)But Trent (errouneously) believes they're tax-exempt.
O.K. Anonymous, enough of this nonsense. Quit slandering me on my own blog. I never said they were tax-exempt. The NY Times did (oh no, here we go again, with the Times) and TIAA-CREF ran a huge ad campaign where they called themselves a "dot.org" which most people would (correctly) associate with an organization being tax-exempt. There's nothing to clear up on my end. You keep high-jacking blog entries making this same point. Let it go. And for the record, I'm sure you're aware that TIAA-CREF was indeed a tax-exempt non-profit until 1997, when they lost their status through the Taxpayer Relief Act.
All I said was that TIAA-CREF is now trying to be cute with what it calls itself, capitalizing on prospective clients wanting to do business with a "dot.org" even though nothing about TIAA-CREF is non-profit other than the stupid domain name they bought.
Not sure why we're talking about something other than Rashard Lewis. At Deadspin, this would be a threadjack, and the posters would have been booted from commenting by now. Anyhow, you got picked up by TrueHoop at ESPN. You can see it here:
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-28-42/Thursday-Bullets.html
I'm curious as to why the Seattle press waited until he left for the Orlando Magic to expose the negative side of his foundation.
Isn't it the job of the press to expose a poorly run charity so that people aren't cheated or deceived?
[Ed at the keyboard]:
It (not being reported in Seattle) could be old-fashioned boosterism, where journalists shy away from criticising the local team.
That attitude sure seems long-dead, though. Maybe team management asked them to not annoy a player they especially wanted to keep?
Anonymous, let's go back to Trent's
other blog, the one on TIAA-CREF. I've left you plenty to work with there.
Rashard has done many things for the community of Seattle and Houston. I know for a fact that he donated about $250K to build a theater and the Ronald McDonald house in Seattle. Every christmas in Seattle he would take a couple of school buses loaded with kids from the Ronald McDonald house christmas shopping. Every summer he holds a charity golf tournament and softball game with the results being backpacks, school supplies, and various other back to school items to all the kids in attendance. And I'm not talking about enough supplies for a couple of kids. I've seen a couple of truck loads of items given to the kids at the game. So please do not bash his foundation because he does do a lot for the communities....you just never hear about it on ESPN or the news outlets. He's a quiet and reserve type of guy and he likes to keep it that way.
The Seattle Times is/was running a series of articles on charities and foundations started by local sports figures. The articles highlighted both the good ones (the foundation started by Jamie Moyer) and the bad ones (like Rashard Lewis). I do not think there was any malicious intent on this on the part of the Times, other than to point out that some charities are better than others, and dig deeper than just the fact an athlete has put his or her name on a charity.
I am the VP and CFO for a non profit and its sister foundation. I have to say that the original article and the commentary by TS is HORRIBLE. Let's remember that's its not important why a person gives but that he gives. My organization receive gifts from individuals and foundations. many times the wealthy people backing the foundations don't have a clue what's going on. Whether it's because they do it to be in the society section of the paper or they are 88 yrs old and bed ridden. But no one questions those individuals. You know what I see first hand. These wealthy people that give money for vanity sakes and won't step a foot in the community the money goes into. They won't even come to a meeting because they are worried about getting robbed or getting some poor minority kid's germs on them. Being black or hispanic isn't contagious last time I checked. At least most of these athletes actually care about the kids and actually spend time with them. Maybe he doesn't know enough about his foundation but he cares and he gives. Which makes him a good guy in my book. I guess he is just guilty on being a black athlete in a time when they are under attack for doing good or bad. But you know what, when he is talking and interacting, and feeding, these kids, I don't think he cares what we think. And thank God for that. Keep up the good work Reggie.
Who's Reggie?
Think all black athletes are named Reggie, Mr. Foundation?
Let's skip all the important points and worry about the mistake the person made with the name at the end. You know they meant Rashard. Thanks for your insightful the post response...
There are no important points in commentary that confuses two completely different people. If you don't even know who's being discussed, you probably aren't offering that much insight.
True enough it's good to do ANYTHING good for someone else. No one is villifying Rashard as an individual; as for his foundation, Trent Stamp seems to believe there could be room for improvement. No one has actually refuted this point yet, I notice.
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