When trucks from Wreaths Across America roll into Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday, they\u2019ll bring with them the largest army of volunteers and the most substantial supply of holiday wreaths in the charity\u2019s 15 years of operation.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re also poised to write their biggest check ever to their sole wreath supplier, a Maine company owned by the founders of the charity whose main source of income is donations to the non-profit.<\/p>\n
Wreaths Across America and the Worcester Wreath Company are open about the relationship, advertising for each other on their websites. Both have filed appropriate disclosures and tax forms and have received no pushback from the Internal Revenue Service or state tax officials.<\/p>\n
But as the operation has grown from a regional volunteer effort to a nationwide campaign bringing in more than $30 million annually \u2014 more than double its 2017 total \u2014 so have questions about whether the close ties between the non-profit group and for-profit company undercut the charitable message of the effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou often see a small charity where some of the insiders still work for a related company or the founders and get paid,\u201d said Brian Mittendorf, the H.P. Wolfe chair in accounting at Ohio State\u2019s Fisher College of Business. \u201cThe unusual part here is the scale. That an organization of this size would still have such a large portion of its budget in the form of transactions with related persons raises questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea for Wreaths Across America grew from a decision by Worcester Wreath owner Morrill Worcester in the 1990s to donate extra holiday wreaths to Arlington National Cemetery. As the tradition attracted more attention, the company split off the work into a charitable arm, still maintaining ties with its founders.<\/p>\n
Over the years, major donors such as American Airlines, Chevrolet and Jersey Mike\u2019s Subs have handed over hundreds of thousands of dollars. In contrast to the early years of the operation, today the two entities have flipped roles, with the charity drawing national headlines and the private wreath firm relying mostly on the organization for revenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it is the case that the for-profit vendor would collapse or need to significantly downsize were it to lose the business of the charity, it is a glaring conflict of interest to have owners of that vendor on the charity\u2019s board or in key staff positions,\u201d said Laurie Styron, CEO and executive director of CharityWatch, an independent charity watchdog group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe owners and their close relatives should either sell off their financial interests in the for-profit vendor, or the interested parties should resign from the charity and allow an independent board to recruit leaders in whom the public can have confidence in their capacity to act independently.\u201d<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
In fiscal 2021, the charity sent nearly $21.5 million to Worcester Wreath. Company officials have said publicly that the Wreaths Across America contract makes up more than 75% of their annual revenue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Much more at the source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wreaths Across America is a charity we’ve talked about many times in the past. From a … Wreaths Across America a scam?<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":150795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arlington-national-cemetary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=150794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/150795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=150794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=150794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=150794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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