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Raising Millions for Charity, And Even More for Golfers
Tiger Woods greets Barbara Bush and former president George H.W. Bush.
(By Toni L. Sandys -- The Washington Post)
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McLaughlin said that other measures show that the operation is particularly well-run -- the charity reported in 2005 that it spent nothing on fundraising and only 1 percent of its revenue on management. One might assume that fundraising expenses could include money spent to put on concerts or golf tournaments -- prizes, gift bags, ballroom dinners and the like. But the Charity Event Corp. listed those expenditures as "program expenses."
The Tiger Woods Foundation's independent auditor, KPMG LLP, wrote in a Nov. 21 report to the board that, "Under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, the costs of hosting the Golf Tournament . . . are not considered program expenses." The auditors noted that the charity had obtained an IRS letter saying that such expenditures could be listed as program expenses on its tax returns.
Bennett Weiner of the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance said he had never seen fundraising costs accounted for in this "unusual" manner. "It raises questions," Weiner said.
The third arm of Woods's operation, the Tiger Woods Learning Center Foundation, is based on a 14-acre campus near Los Angeles. The center offers programs for children in grades 4 through 12. Classes are designed to inspire children toward careers in forensic science, robotics, engineering and video production.
In 2005, the Learning Center Foundation collected $6.7 million in direct public donations and $3.5 million in government grants. That brought the organization's net worth to $25 million.
Woods said he hopes to open his second learning center in the Washington area, though McLaughlin cautioned it could take three years to get a center up and running on the East Coast and that the location has not been pinpointed.
"We're still really early in the process," he said.
For the first year of the tournament at Congressional, he said, most proceeds will be given to local youth-based charities. After that, most will be directed toward establishing the East Coast learning center.
McLaughlin is president of all three of Woods's nonprofits. A former tournament director for the Western Golf Association in Chicago, McLaughlin in fiscal year 2005 received compensation and benefits totaling $310,000, federal tax returns show.
Tim Finchem, commissioner of the PGA Tour, received a compensation package from the tour's nonprofit and one of its for-profit subsidiaries that totaled nearly $9 million. Tour officials said that includes retirement benefits, deferred compensation and multi-year bonuses subject to forfeiture if Finchem left the organization.
Business and Philanthropy
Woods's charity operations intersect with his business interests.
The boards of Woods's charities include executives whose companies have paid to associate themselves with the PGA Tour and Woods's public persona. Board members in recent years have included a group president at AT&T, a marketing director from Countrywide Financial Corp., a marketing manager from the financial firm HSBC, a vice president from Williams Co. and a consultant for Target.
