The Most Outrageous Charity in America Larry Jones' Feed the Children
From forged audits and alleged employee theft in the late '90s to alleged burglary and board coup staging within the past year, no other major charity can match Feed the Children's (FC) record of outrageous behavior over the past ten years. The madcap antics of Feed the Children and Larry Jones, its founder and president for 30 years, may be coming to an end. In August 2009, after months of turmoil at the charity, Mr. Jones agreed to give up control of FC in order to settle a lawsuit between FC's longstanding board and a new board that he had attempted to install. Fascinating details about many alleged wrongdoings at this charity have been brought to light as a result of this lawsuit.
Last December, Larry Jones staged a failed coup in an attempt to take over the board of FC after the board decided to put an end to his "freewheeling dominance" over the charity and demanded that he take a sabbatical for an indefinite period of time. The new board members Larry Jones attempted to install consisted of prominent ministers. This board along with Larry Jones promptly fired FC's chief operating officer, chief financial officer, internal auditor and the daughter of Larry Jones, Larri Sue Jones, FC's Vice President and General Counsel. The longstanding board sued the new board in January and was reinstated by Oklahoma County District Judge Patricia Parrish in February along with the previously fired employees.
FC has continuously received an F grade from AIP since we began rating this charity in 1995. Based on FC's most recently available financial statements for fiscal 2008, only 21 to 23 percent of its cash budget was spent on program services and $63 to $65 was spent to raise each $100 cash contribution. In 2008 about 54% of FC's cash budget of $125 million was spent on "television and radio," "direct mail," and "direct mail postage" according to its audit of the same year....