Planet Aid spent around $20 million on collecting and reselling the used clothing and shoes in 2011 and $23.3 million in 2012, but classifies the costs as expenses for running a service program - its “U.S. In addition to salaries for the 350 or so employees, Planet Aid also pays contractors - $381,275 in 2012 and $1.6 million in 2011 - to empty the boxes and transport the goods to the nearest warehouse. General and administrative payroll costs hovered around $3 million for both years. The payroll costs of collecting the clothing, which makes up the majority of the wages, also increased by about $2 million, increasing from just under $9.3 million in 2011 to $11.3 million for 2012. Payroll increased by about $2 million between 20, with $12.3 million paid to Planet Aid employees and executives for 2011 and $14.3 million paid in 2012, the audit shows. The auditor said there were similar allocations for 2012. The aid issued in 2011 went to training teachers, $3 million community development for poor youth, $3.2 million health programs to address disease disorders, including AIDS-HIV, $2 million and $2 million for agriculture and rural development programs to address nutrition. The amount allocated to international aid, according to the audit created by Westborough, Mass.-based accounting firm Alexander, Aronson, Finning and Co., increased from $9.98 million in 2011 to $10.7 million for 2012. Meehan provided the Bangor Daily News with a copy of the 2012 financial audit for Planet Aid issued in June, which shows the nonprofit had a $40.4 million operating budget, up from nearly $37 million for 2011 and in 2012 collected $38.4 million in revenue from clothing sales, up from about $31.4 million in 2011.įederal contracts decreased in value from about $5 million in 2011 to approximately $3.8 million for 2012, and donations stayed about the same at $659, to $700,264 in 2012. Planet Aid is registered a 501(c)(3) charity and is exempt from federal and state taxes. They’ve issued no change letters, twice.”Īn IRS representative said he could not discuss whether a person, business or nonprofit was audited or the results of any IRS audit for privacy reasons. He later added, “If any of it was actually true … the IRS, who is clearly out to find, would have issued a change order. “If there had been anything wrong with it, it would have been found.” “You don’t have to take our word, you can take the government’s word for it,” Franks said. He added that Planet Aid has been audited by the IRS twice in recent years. Planet Aid financesįranks said whenever people ask about where the money raised is spent, he points them to the organization’s yearly financial documents which are posted on the Planet Aid website and include the annual IRS reporting form for charities, Form 990. The Boston Globe reported in 2002 that Neltrup was a Teachers Group member, and that Planet Aid was a spinoff of Tvind, but the nonprofit’s spokesman denied the claim, saying, “It’s definitely not an offshoot.” The Globe report sparked a number of follow up articles in newspapers and magazines and on television news shows wherever the yellow collection boxes showed up, with most focusing on Planet Aid’s connection to Peterson and the Teacher’s Group or their bad rating with CharityWatch. “What we tell people is, and it’s always hard to understand, the Teachers Group-Tvind group really have nothing to do with the operations of Planet Aid at all,” the Planet Aid spokesman said.
Franks added later that only about 1 percent of Planet Aid’s approximately 350 employees are Teachers Group members.
“A very small number” of Teachers Group members are board members for Planet Aid, Franks said.Ī board of six people, led by Chairman Mikael Norling and President Ester Neltrup, run the organization, according to the Planet Aid website.
Byrner received a suspended 1-year jail sentence and the rest, including Pedersen, were acquitted.
Watch the lunchbox 2013 trial#
The Danish government tried to prosecute Pedersen and seven others in his inner circle, a group called the Teachers Group, for tax evasion and fraud a decade ago but only one - Sten Byrner, Tvind’s financial director - was convicted after a three-year trial that ended in 2006, several media sources reported. “Not a lot of it is true and not a lot is researched,” Franks said of Durham’s website. Planet Aid spokesman Jonathan Franks, managing founder of Lucid Public Relations, said that much of Durham’s reporting is misleading.
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