John Kelker, the President of United Way of Central Illinois, is a thug. Go ahead. Sue me, John. Truth is the ultimate defense.
As reported in the February 26, 2009, issue of the Illinois Times, Kelker over the past several years has conducted a campaign to deny other charities their legally-entitled equal access to municipal employee workplace charity fund drives and replace them with what effectively constitutes a United Way-only campaign. (http://illinoistimes.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A9592).
He's done it by bold-faced lying to municipal leaders, promising to manage an "open" campaign in their workplaces and then showing up with United Way biased pledge cards and policies. Example: if a donor makes a gift to United Way there is no surcharge deducted and no minimum gift is required. If the donor attempts to give to a non United Way charity, there is a $25 minimum requirement and a 15 percent "handling" fee.
It's just not credible that the leaders of the affected municipal campaigns would tolerate this prevarication and abuse of trust. What possible reason would they have to go along with it? Unless... Unless. You know.
The State Attorney General should be taking a really close look at this.
Recent Comments