Donations for Martyrs?

03 May 2009 @ 10:09 PM

I started researching the Philippine Aid Society out of curiosity to see what kind of “good” they claim to do. Naturally they are run by bible thumpers (that much I expected), but I did not expect to be led on a wild goose chase that took me to a martyr blog, a shipping company, and a Japanese website/blog of which I could read nothing. After all these sites not only did I not find any information on the charity, but I had a plethora of additional unanswered questions.

Here is what I do know: The charity was started on April 01, 2009. It is run by Tim A. Troutman and his wife Mari. Mari is from The Philippines. Tim owns a restaurant in the Philippines. Tim works for a shipping company that incidentally is the very company that ships the donated goods from the charity to the Philippines. Tim is writing a book on Church history.

Despite this statement on the website “We believe in keeping financial information transparent and being fiscally responsible as unto the Lord” I was unable to find any financial information for the charity either on their website, or anywhere else. Their non-profit status is apparently “pending”.

I rarely recommend donating to charities since most of them do not have goals even remotely in line with New Global Future. I certainly never recommend donating to a charity when their legitimacy cannot be determined, much less to charities run by bible thumping martyrs that provide aid to the poor who are then subjected to “the gospel of Jesus Christ and Christian teachings on morality“.

The best thing you can do is support the individuals, corporations and organizations that we deem to be “Friends of the Future“.

Tags: Charity, martyr
Categories: Enemies of the Future Posted By: Katrina Seldik
Last Edit: 07 Mar 2010 @ 11 49 PM

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Tim A. Troutman says:

May 4, 2009 at 6:03 am

Ms. Seldik,

Thank you for reviewing my small charity. I’m sorry to see that it got such a negative review. I’m sure you’re right that we’re not “Friends of the Future” in that our goals have nothing to do with reducing the carbon footprint (although Manila would be a great place to do something like that; it’s extremely polluted!) I have never been big on environmentalism but a trip to Manila would make anyone realize the importance of the issue.

As for the information on my charity, I’m not sure why you were looking on my personal blogs which are unrelated to the charity to find answers. Let me just correct a few things:

The charity was incorporated on 4/1/2009 (you can verify that here . I do not work for a shipping company; I work for a homeless shelter. I became an agent for the “Manila Forwarder” shipping company to ship donations to the Philippines at wholesale prices. We’ve sent two boxes of donations so far. I don’t think there’s anything shady about that.

You are right that our non-profit status is pending; I’ve heard that it takes quite some time to go through. If you’d like a copy of the letter of acknowledgment I received from the IRS, let me know. Also, regarding the financial information, we are a brand new charity (as you mentioned) and so there really isn’t much in the way of financial information to share. No one earns a salary; all employees are volunteers (i.e. me and one other person). I don’t have the exact information in front of me right now but roughly in the month of April we raised $1,140 in donations and we spent $300 on the IRS registration fee, $75 on setting up a mailbox, roughly $150 on shipping related expenses, and about $20 on miscellaneous office supplies and postage for sending receipts etc… If you check back next year around this time, we’ll probably have a 990 available for download on our website. If anyone wants more detailed financial information, just let me know and I’ll be happy provide it.

Sorry for the long reply. If you have any further questions, I’ll be happy to answer them.
Katrina Seldik says:

May 5, 2009 at 12:14 am

Mr. Troutman,
Thank you for the correction. The date has been changed.

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