Socialite lady's charity benefits ... socialite lady

[mme_hardy]

The San Francisco Chronicle does some good old-fashioned shoeleather reporting. 

Over the last decade, filings to the Internal Revenue Service reveal the nonprofit [Helpers Community Inc. — known until 2015 as Helpers of the Mentally Retarded] has done little charitable work while amassing millions of dollars in assets and donations and generously compensating [Joy] Bianchi, whose work includes attending red-carpet galas from Beverly Hills to Manhattan where she appears alongside celebrities such as Demi Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow and Katy Perry.

 

Helpers’ mission statement defines its “most pressing and important goal” as supporting quality residential care for the developmentally disabled. But in the past 13 years, the charity has given nothing to residential programs. And for a six-year period from 2003 to 2008, Helpers gave nothing at all to any charitable cause, according to financial records.

 

Bianchi, meanwhile, has been paid far above the norm for directors of charities. With base compensation of $193,828 in 2015, Bianchi earned roughly $100,000 more than the CEOs of about two dozen similarly sized San Francisco human service nonprofits tracked by Charity Navigator, a leading national watchdog group. Bianchi earned an additional $29,074 in retirement and other deferred compensation that year.
 

What did Helpers do, back when it did anything?  I am not making this up.

 

Bianchi volunteered for Helpers as a teen in the 1950s, eventually joining the organization in the 1960s just as it opened its first residential care home. For roughly 40 years, money raised by the organization helped fund its group homes, which boasted lush drapery, crystal chandeliers and needlepoint-covered chairs. Helpers cared for a total of 33 residents, offering them craft-making workshops and lessons in etiquette and fine dining.

 

Comments

[moetushie]

Doesn't sound very helpful, there.

[mme_hardy]

It certainly helps Ms. Bianchi. I didn't even quote the part about those houses now being used to resell designer clothing to other socialites, although some of the donated clothes have been seen on Ms. Bianchi.

[moetushie]

With this kind of talent for self-serving 'charity', Ms. Bianchi might consider applying for a job at the Trump administration. I hear they're hiring.

[legionseagle]

Isn't there a crack in The Groupto similar effect about Polly's Aunt Julia and her charity shops, when she gives her impoverished bipolar brother a job because "Henry knows wood"?

[ironed_orchid]

I believe it provided a special home for people with developmental disabilities. A home which would make their rich relatives feel good when they remembered to visit.

[mme_hardy]

"Look, she remembered to use her fingerbowl!"

[ironed_orchid]

Precisely!

[mme_hardy]

I wonder if 2002, the date when these homes closed, correlates with closer supervision of homes for the disabled?

[ironed_orchid]

I would not be in the tiniest bit surprised.

[ankaret]

Gosh. I would really like to take Gavin along to one of the etiquette and fine dining lessons. I suspect it would be up there with the time a kindly volunteer at a wildlife centre asked if Gavin would like to hold a snake. (I don't think I actually responded 'Last week he chewed through a hosepipe, so no' but I may have let it show on my face)