Iowa’s Attorney General has filed charges against a fundraiser accused of bringing in lots of money — and keeping it. A-G’s spokesman Bob Brammer says a professional fundraiser hired by a charity allegedly raised money but put checks into his own account, not the charity’s. The suit names Paul Ackerman, a Sioux City man doing business as A&A Marketing in Sioux City and Waterloo. Brammer says he was hired to raise money by telemarketing. Brammer says for many years, since the mid-1990s, he solicited money for AmVets, a veterans organization, under an agreement that he’d keep 80-percent of the money he raised and give 20-percent to the charity. The attorney general is charging that even that generous share wasn’t enough for the defendant, who put money into a secret account of his own without giving a share to the AmVets organization. Brammer says in 2003, Ackerman put $234,000 into an account of his own without sharing with the charity. Brammer says it’s a cautionary tale for charities who “lend their good names” to professional fundraisers who take the lion’s share of money they raise. When you get that telemarketing call, he says you have a right to ask questions like “Are you a professional fund raiser?” and “What share of my dollar will go to the charitable purpose you’re talking about?” Law doesn’t require them to offer you that information, but you can ask for it, and even ask them to send you some written material about the charity and the fundraiser, including how much of the money they raise will kept for the professional’s “fundraising expenses.”
