As Iowa showed, the slime rises to the top, or who would Jesus scam?
But homeless families and troubled children were not the biggest beneficiaries of “Operation Good Neighbor.†Instead, the foundation spent most of its money to run itself, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for fundraising, administration and office rental paid to Santorum’s political allies.
The charity also had significant overlap with the senator’s campaigns and his work on Capitol Hill. Among the leading donors to the foundation were Pennsylvania development and finance firms that had donated to his election efforts and had interests that Santorum had supported in the Senate.
Before it folded in 2007, the foundation raised $2.58 million, with 39 percent of that donated directly to groups helping the needy. By industry standards, such philanthropic groups should be donating nearly twice that, from 75 to 85 percent of their funds.
“That’s exceptionally poor,†Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator, a national organization that rates charitable groups, said of the group’s giving. “We would tell donors to run with fear from this organization.â€
In its six years, the charity also paid $347,088 for the fundraising services of Maria Diesel, a Chester County events coordinator who has also helped raise money for Santorum’s political efforts.
When he was in office and running for re-election, he gave 20 percent of the funds to other GOP candidates in federal races. But after Santorum left the Senate, that figure dropped to about 3 percent, although he also gave a small amount to local Republicans in key primary states.
The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, found in a 2011 study that leadership PACs run by lawmakers commonly give away from 80 to 90 percent of their money to other candidates or political committees.
After he left the Senate, Santorum spent most of his PAC money â€" more than $3 million â€" on campaign-style expenses criticizing Democrats, including direct mail, polling and political consultants, disclosure records show. Another $1.4 million went for travel, salaries and other administrative costs.
As with the charity, hundreds of thousands of dollars of the PAC money went to loyal aides with close ties to Santorum. Bickhart and his firm, for example, have received nearly $780,000 from America’s Foundation since 2001, records show.
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