Latest / Voices for Voices® / Government Efficiency and Nonprofit Integrity: Unpacking the Real Cost of Financial Mismanagement | Episode 206

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Government Efficiency and Nonprofit Integrity: Unpacking the Real Cost of Financial Mismanagement | Episode 206 · Voices for Voices®

• 0:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: Welcome to this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
• 0:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes.
• 0:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us today and thank you for all the support you've given our organization.
• 0:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: If you could give us a big thumbs up, share, like comment, that would be very much appreciated so that we can head towards that goal of helping 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
• 0:35
  Justin Alan Hayes: So it's a huge goal and those things don't cost anything to do.
• 0:41
  Justin Alan Hayes: So we would appreciate that.
• 0:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: And, as you know by now, you can find us everywhere.
• 0:46
  Justin Alan Hayes: You can find us every Wednesday on Hudson Community Television, here in the Western Reserve, northeast Ohio area, if you have Spectrum, and you can find us on YouTube, rumble and all the audio platforms.
• 1:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: Whether you like Spotify, whether you like Apple Podcasts, we're there for everybody.
• 1:14
  Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you again for joining us, and we're going to kick off this episode by really asking a couple different questions.
• 1:24
  Justin Alan Hayes: So the first one is how many of you would like to either not pay taxes and or not be audited every year?
• 1:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: So we're coming into the time where the IRS is asking individuals, organizations, to file taxes for the previous year, the previous quarter, and if we don't do that, we could be in big trouble.
• 1:56
  Justin Alan Hayes: We could face thousands in fines and, depending on the situation, situation, we could find ourselves in jail, and so I would think that any individual or organization who would benefit from not having to pay extra money to for the, for the taxes, or be audited every year, would do that if it was legal, and so this is again a hypothetical.
• 2:32
  Justin Alan Hayes: So that's kind of the first part.
• 2:34
  Justin Alan Hayes: The second part is how would you like it?
• 2:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: And I'm even asking my own self the question how would I like to get 43, 45 million dollars every year for an organization?
• 2:51
  Justin Alan Hayes: So Voices for Voices is an organization and I can tell you right now we don't get 43 million, 45, 1 million, and so I think we could also agree that if there was a way, like a lottery, that we could basically get money for free without having to do a whole lot, we would do that, and so would we have that extra money to potentially pay for a wedding, pay for a house.
• 3:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: That would obviously be something that wouldn't be a good thing, because that would be kind of going against the grain, because as an organization, right, we have missions, we have visions, we have goals, objectives, and that's what we're supposed to be held to, that high standard of following.
• 3:54
  Justin Alan Hayes: So if there is a grant available or there is a foundation or a gifting or donation or a sponsorship opportunity, that comes along.
• 4:06
  Justin Alan Hayes: When that comes along, the individuals and or organizations are putting their money into an organization for a particular reason, and the particular reason are having something to do with the mission, the vision, the goals, the objectives of that particular organization, and so that's how things should work.
• 4:36
  Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, it's pretty much common sense.
• 4:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: I would think that you know if we're giving money for a particular reason, that we're using it for a particular reason, that we're using it for that particular reason.
• 4:51
  Justin Alan Hayes: So let's start with that first question and dig a little bit deeper about not paying taxes and or having an audit each year for our organization or for us individuals and households, for our organization or for us individuals and households.
• 5:06
  Justin Alan Hayes: So that's what's been occurring in our US government.
• 5:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: So you may be watching, listening, from a country outside the United States and so you'd have to look at your own individual situation in your government.
• 5:24
  Justin Alan Hayes: So if you're in Italy, or we've been actually picking up a lot of you followers and listeners and viewers in Japan and Australia the last month, month and a half, so you'd have to look at that particular instance for yourself.
• 5:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: But, speaking in the United States, that's where our organization resides, where I reside, and many organizations within the United States federal government I think the surprise to a lot of people, regardless doesn't matter politically what side of the aisle you're on, just common sense would say it would be a good thing to be audited, to look at the books, see where money is being spent, if it's really being spent, where the money is supposed to for a particular project, supposed to for a particular project.
• 6:24
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so that's been occurring across a wide variety of agencies here in the United States, and so there's been a lot of uproar, I would say, about the world's most wealthy individual, the individual Elon Musk, coming in as a non-elected member of the administration, the Trump administration, coming in and forming what has been dubbed as DOGE D-O-G-E, the Department of Government Efficiency, as DOGE D-O-G-E the Department of Government Efficiency, and so that's the organization or the group that is going into all the agencies within the federal government and looking to make sure that again, the organizations that have been receiving millions and can you believe it, billions of dollars year over year over year without really any extra thought going into it, just oh well, this organization got $3 billion last year, so we're going to put them in for $3 billion next year and the like.
• 7:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: So those things have been going on and we all know that there's always a few not good apples out there.
• 7:48
  Justin Alan Hayes: But to find as much as what Elon and his team has in just a few weeks as far as waste going to organizations who, coming back to what we talked about at the beginning have an organization mission, a vision of what the money is supposed to be used for, whether it's the individual running the organization or it's money coming from the federal government in the form of potentially grants or other organizations who are on board with the mission and the vision.
• 8:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so billions has been found, just up until the taping of this show, to be wasteful spending.
• 8:35
  Justin Alan Hayes: And I think how that ties into the taxes and auditing what also has been found with kind of this frivolous spending within some of the agencies and organizations within the government.
• 8:51
  Justin Alan Hayes: All those agencies haven't been audited every single year to again look at the books, find out what money is coming in, what money is going out, where it's coming from, where it's going.
• 9:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: And that's alarming to me as an organization leader who, every year, we have to again, we have to file our taxes, we have to show where the money's coming from, where it's going, and that has to be submitted to the federal government.
• 9:27
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so why are organizations like Voices for Voices, why do we, with way less money, donations, sponsorships coming in?
• 9:42
  Justin Alan Hayes: Why should we have to do things a particular way?
• 9:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: But if you're within the federal government, oh well, you know there have been agencies that's been found 10, 15 years.
• 9:55
  Justin Alan Hayes: They haven't had an audit and even when they did have an audit, the audits failed.
• 9:59
  Justin Alan Hayes: And that's very just troubling as an individual, because if we take that step back, look at ourselves as an individual, and if we miss filing our taxes for 15 years, I can almost guarantee that you and I would be in a lot of trouble from the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, and so that's really what's happening.
• 10:24
  Justin Alan Hayes: And another step to that is we think about, oh well, elon.
• 10:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: He's not elected and we can all have our opinions, but what we can't really move away from the fact is, here is the world's wealthiest man.
• 10:43
  Justin Alan Hayes: Here is the world's wealthiest man and he is actually sleeping on the first floor in a sleeping bag in some of these office buildings that he's doing the now audits that should have been done and continued year after year, and so he's not staying at the Ritz-Carlton, he's not staying at the Ritz-Carlton, he's not staying at the W.
• 11:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: Here's an individual, and so to me that just shows that an individual is dedicated to what they're doing.
• 11:15
  Justin Alan Hayes: So Elon is just kind of a vehicle that is going in and finding again he's not looking to.
• 11:27
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know, if an organization is doing well and they've been doing things by the books, you know, filing their taxes, they're being audited, actually being occupied which is another little sliver into that conversation of how many buildings that Elon and his team have gone into that you and I are paying here in the United States.
• 12:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: If you're watching or listening from a different country, you're probably paying taxes, some form of money, to your government, and that money is being spent how they see fit, and so you would think right that that money would be going to good use, that if we have five agencies, we have five buildings and now that we are still in that post-COVID era, and so COVID is still a thing, but it has really dialed back from when it first came out.
• 12:46
  Justin Alan Hayes: So that was one of the big reasons how we got into doing heavy remote meetings, you know, on the Zooms and the like, and so that's just another sliver into, you know, wasteful spending, because you and I, wherever we're living, if we're living in an apartment, a condo, a house, we're paying some type of monthly fee until we talk about a house and a condo.
• 13:19
  Justin Alan Hayes: If we pay those off, then we're still having to pay taxes every year so we can have our homes paid off.
• 13:28
  Justin Alan Hayes: But again there comes that T word, the taxes, and so we're being audited every year as individuals and organizations like ours Voices for Voices and so we should have that expectation.
• 13:42
  Justin Alan Hayes: But well, so should the government.
• 13:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: The government should be audited.
• 13:46
  Justin Alan Hayes: They have a building.
• 13:50
  Justin Alan Hayes: It should be, let's just say, there should be more than zero as the number of the individuals, as Elon and his team go into certain agencies where there's literally cobwebs around.
• 14:10
  Justin Alan Hayes: So that might be a little bit extreme that there's cobwebs, but that just goes to show that there's some agencies that nobody has been in or very few people have been in in quite a while, and so that just wraps around that efficiency, making sure that our tax money is being spent a little bit wiser.
• 14:33
  Justin Alan Hayes: We can't guarantee everything and this show and episode isn't going to change everything.
• 14:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: This is really just kind of like a newsflash of what's been happening.
• 14:45
  Justin Alan Hayes: And you may have a different take than I do and we do, and that's okay.
• 14:49
  Justin Alan Hayes: We can agree to disagree.
• 14:52
  Justin Alan Hayes: But again, at the end of the day, I bet you're paying taxes and I bet you're paying it every year, and if you're not, I bet you've had fines added onto the amount of taxes that your organization would owe.
• 15:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: And this isn't just isolated to the common individual.
• 15:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: Celebrities are in the same boat.
• 15:18
  Justin Alan Hayes: I know, years ago, wesley Snipes.
• 15:22
  Justin Alan Hayes: I remember him playing Willie Mays Hayes in the movie Major League and I thought he was funny in that movie and he had been in other movies.
• 15:34
  Justin Alan Hayes: But there was a period of time where he wasn't paying his taxes and he kind of or the IRS kind of caught up to him and I'm not quite sure where that ended up.
• 15:46
  Justin Alan Hayes: But I know that at a minimum he would have to pay the taxes because he wasn't paying for, I think 10 or 15 years.
• 15:54
  Justin Alan Hayes: It was quite a long stretch that he wasn't paying the taxes on.
• 16:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: So that's really what we're talking about, and how does that affect mental health?
• 16:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: Well, if we don't have confidence in our own government, that can make us feel a little bit uneasy about what prerogative the leaders and the people have been running the country for not just the last four years, but many, many, many administrations.
• 16:26
  Justin Alan Hayes: Just the last four years, but many, many, many administrations, even going back to the, you know, to the 60s.
• 16:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know nobody really stepped in.
• 16:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know we want to think that.
• 16:38
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know we can help and fix things across the world, but if we can't fix things in our own backyard, then what use is that?
• 16:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so that's where the second part of this episode.
• 16:51
  Justin Alan Hayes: We talk about having organizations that are specifically their vision and mission and goals are to help help other countries, other causes outside of the United States, and that's a good thing.
• 17:10
  Justin Alan Hayes: And it really just comes back to what is our organization?
• 17:15
  Justin Alan Hayes: What is again, what's the mission, vision, goals, objectives, and are we using the money that is coming in for what that is supposed to be meant for?
• 17:28
  Justin Alan Hayes: So if we have a project where we're, let's say, for the example, to really kind of round things out, let's say that we have a nonprofit organization, organization where we are using the donations to pay for lunches for individuals from Haiti, because we still know that Haiti is still reeling from the earthquake and natural disasters that have happened, and so that's a good thing to do.
• 18:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: And as an organization, that can be, you know, part of the organization or if the organization was specifically set up for that.
• 18:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: So if you know a particular amount of money comes in a million dollars comes in darn close then a million dollars should go out.
• 18:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: Dollars comes in darn close to a million dollars should go out to pay for those meals.
• 18:33
  Justin Alan Hayes: So what's that have to do with anything?
• 18:36
  Justin Alan Hayes: So there's been reporting, and these have been backed up by Elon and his team, and we've all probably heard in the United States at this point about an organization called USAID.
• 18:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: So USAID is an organization and it happens to have US at the beginning.
• 18:53
  Justin Alan Hayes: So one would kind of think that the organization, if we take the acronym out, that it would be United States Aid, not Haiti Aid.
• 19:06
  Justin Alan Hayes: And again, that's not to say that we don't want to help other places in the world, and I'm not one to kind of go off on that tangent, because as an organization, we've been to Ukraine, we've been to Poland and we've done things, but the difference is the money that's coming in is very minimal and so darn near 98%, 99% of the money that was spent to do those mission trips, they were spent by me.
• 19:38
  Justin Alan Hayes: That was my money.
• 19:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: It wasn't money that was coming in from an organization, a sponsorship, and so that's kind of where we really split off.
• 19:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: So if we have things that we want to do a little bit on the side but are still part of that mission, if it's outside the United States, we should be using our own money.
• 20:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: We shouldn't be using money that's coming in for a grant unless that grant is for that particular reason.
• 20:08
  Justin Alan Hayes: So Chelsea Clinton the daughter of past President Bill Clinton and past Secretary of State Hillary Clinton she has an organization and her organization was to do just that, was to pay for meals, for lunches, for people living in Haiti, and she was, and has been receiving close to $42, $43 million a year into that organization.
• 20:43
  Justin Alan Hayes: When the books were kind of as the books were kind of being going through, elon and his team found that out of that $43 million, $10 million went to buy a mansion.
• 20:56
  Justin Alan Hayes: So again, that comes back to you know how would you like to just get free money, win the lottery, we would love that, right, and so we don't have to pay the money back, it's just money that's here.
• 21:10
  Justin Alan Hayes: And then we want to buy a book, we want to buy a camera, a phone, a car, we want to buy a private jet, whatever that may be, and so $10 million went to pay for a mansion so that's just a fancy term for a big house and $3 million went to pay for her wedding.
• 21:30
  Justin Alan Hayes: And having been married and gone through that process, it can be quite costly.
• 21:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: And I can tell you right now I never received my wife never received $3 million, $2 million, $1 million, $500,000, $400,000.
• 21:58
  Justin Alan Hayes: We didn't receive that.
• 22:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so we call that kind of the bait and switch right and kind of think of the car dealer as an example.
• 22:04
  Justin Alan Hayes: So let's say there is a Ford Fusion being advertised for $399 a month for a particular period of time, and you or I are in the market for a new car and we're like, oh wow, this car is what we're looking for, it has all the features and it fits within our budget.
• 22:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so we go to the dealer and we ask one of the representatives about that and say, hey, I'd like to look at the Ford Fusions, the $399 a month.
• 22:41
  Justin Alan Hayes: That was on the advertisement that I saw on TV or on YouTube or Spotify as an ad.
• 22:52
  Justin Alan Hayes: However, that advertisement came through and the representative of the car dealership says, oh, that's not for the Ford Fusion, that's actually for the Honda Accord.
• 23:04
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so we're thinking like, okay, well, these cars are similar in certain ways and dissimilar in certain ways.
• 23:14
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so we come back and say, well, but the Ford Fusion is what was advertised and that's what we want for this price.
• 23:24
  Justin Alan Hayes: And they say, oh well, if you want that, that's actually $450 a month or $499 a month.
• 23:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: Again, I'm giving these as hypotheticals, but that would be what we99 a month and that would qualify for what you saw on television or you heard on Spotify.
• 23:49
  Justin Alan Hayes: Or if you're mowing the grass and listen to music and you don't have the premium version.
• 23:52
  Justin Alan Hayes: Like, I don't have the premium version, so ads come in here and there, and so that's what we call the bait and switch.
• 23:59
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so that's when we back that up and go back into the story about the organization that Chelsea has, by taking that money under the pretense that the money was going to be spent for a certain reason and that was to pay for lunches for people living in Haiti.
• 24:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: Instead, she took that $10 and $3 million, so that $13 million, and bought things personally.
• 24:35
  Justin Alan Hayes: Now as an organization, some dollars, and it really comes down to your board of directors and being up front with your donors.
• 24:46
  Justin Alan Hayes: Just because an individual or a team works for a nonprofit doesn't mean that they wouldn't get paid at some point.
• 24:55
  Justin Alan Hayes: We can think of, right here in Northeast Ohio, the Cleveland Clinic's a non-profit.
• 25:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: We just had the Super Bowl.
• 25:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: The NFL's a non-profit, which is incredible to think about because of I think it was $8 million or so for a 30-second ad.
• 25:15
  Justin Alan Hayes: So that money is going to the network and the networks are on the back end paying the NFL, and then all that network and the networks are on the back end paying the NFL.
• 25:22
  Justin Alan Hayes: And then all that merchandise, all the jerseys, the hats, the towels, those ones that are licensed by the NFL they're getting a percentage of that.
• 25:34
  Justin Alan Hayes: And oh, by the way, roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, again, which is a nonprofit, is pulling in.
• 25:41
  Justin Alan Hayes: I believe last check was around $30 million a year.
• 25:46
  Justin Alan Hayes: So when we pull all those layers back and we talk about this Chelsea Clinton organization, a, let's say a it wouldn't be something that house and to buy the mansion, buy the house and then pay for the wedding, and so let's say it's $50,000 a year or whatever that amount is.
• 26:38
  Justin Alan Hayes: So the board of directors are on board with that.
• 26:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: So the board of directors are on board with that.
• 26:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: If there is literature on a website that mentions that with the financials, then that is something that would be in a better position than what's actually occurred, because when the curtain is pulled back, it's showing that $10 million and $3 million going to the mansion and the wedding, which would mean the leftover money that would, or the leftover meal money that was supposed to be sent to Haiti, came out to somewhere in the $1,400, $1,500 a meal, and so that's just crazy, if you really think about it, that a meal would cost $1,400.
• 27:26
  Justin Alan Hayes: Well, when you start doing the numbers and we did an out-of-studio episode about numbers and how they're all in our lives one way or another I'm watching the clock right now of how long we have on the show there's different cameras and so, just right there, there's numbers that I have to be somewhat familiar with.
• 27:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: So, as an organization, we should kind of do what our mission and our vision is, and then you know if we want to talk about salary, then that money has to be again approved by the board as well as letting the general public know.
• 28:08
  Justin Alan Hayes: So if an individual is donating $10, that they know that maybe a dollar of that is going to go to salaries versus.
• 28:18
  Justin Alan Hayes: Oh no, we got this organization and here's what we do, and all the money that comes in goes for this particular thing.
• 28:24
  Justin Alan Hayes: Well, that particular thing did not occur and is not occurring.
• 28:29
  Justin Alan Hayes: So we rewind to the beginning of this episode and, as we were talking about DOGE, department of Government and Efficiency, this USAID, and how they were spending money on causes outside of the US, outside of our national security posture, the organization that Chelsea runs came to the top and it's probably because she's a big name right, she's a daughter of a former president and a former secretary of state, so it's kind of like pulling a celebrity out and making an example of them.
• 29:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: And so that's what Elon and his team are really doing.
• 29:15
  Justin Alan Hayes: They're trying to come in and not just trying.
• 29:18
  Justin Alan Hayes: They are.
• 29:18
  Justin Alan Hayes: They're coming in and they're looking for organizations to be run efficiently, and where there's money being spent outside the scope of what it's supposed to be spent on, outside of that mission, vision, goals and objectives, then that needs to stop, and so that's really what's occurring.
• 29:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: So, for me, my mental health is a little bit better just knowing that there's things going on that are going to help push our government a little bit closer to what we have to do as individuals and voices for voices, and that is to pay our taxes and to do what we say we're going to do with the money that we receive from donations.
• 30:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: So until next time, thank you for joining us on this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
• 30:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: Again, if you can give us a big thumbs up like share comment, we would appreciate that, and so until next time, please be a voice for you or somebody in need.