I feel like crying: I spent ten years in management of federal programs before I gave up trying to stop this. At my own estimation, I discovered close to 1 million dollars in those ten years. The largest case was $80,000, but most were a couple thousand. I have never seen anyone prosecuted or lose a job. Indeed, my career suffered as a result. The “profile” of the common offender is consistent with what I found, to the extent that *I* profiled subrecipients and looked harder at those who fit that description.
But we can take it one step further: there is a class of con out there that targets nonprofits specifically because of the trusting environment. Because I have worked on national-level programs, I have actually encountered the cons twice. In one case, his fraud was discovered by one organization after he left, then he popped up clear across the country. By the time we realized the extent of his fraud, he’d left the second organization, as well- with about $10K.
COMMENTS
BY jenniferro10
ON September 24, 2008 02:06 PM
I feel like crying: I spent ten years in management of federal programs before I gave up trying to stop this. At my own estimation, I discovered close to 1 million dollars in those ten years. The largest case was $80,000, but most were a couple thousand. I have never seen anyone prosecuted or lose a job. Indeed, my career suffered as a result. The “profile” of the common offender is consistent with what I found, to the extent that *I* profiled subrecipients and looked harder at those who fit that description.
But we can take it one step further: there is a class of con out there that targets nonprofits specifically because of the trusting environment. Because I have worked on national-level programs, I have actually encountered the cons twice. In one case, his fraud was discovered by one organization after he left, then he popped up clear across the country. By the time we realized the extent of his fraud, he’d left the second organization, as well- with about $10K.
Something to think about.