Mega hattip and thanks to him for this; what he discovered about this website and the organization behind it should give anyone pause before sending them any donations, especially this particular sentence, pulled directly from their own website:
"OUR CHURCH IS NOT A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION AND NEVER INTENDS TO BE."
(email alert from Michael)
I read your post about the group Homeless Nashville who are trying to take credit for "work" being done at the Nashville tent city.
Although I'm usually pretty good at researching things, I haven't been able to track down their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt ID number.
And believe me, I tried.
Generally, if a group is legit, I can somehow or other come up with their tax-exempt #. I drew a blank which leads me to believe they don't have one despite their claim of being non-profit....
Here's some links that you might interesting:
The domain name: HomelessNashville.com is registered to: Zip Sales Worldwide.
(http://www.domaincrawler.com/domains/view/homelessnashville.com)
Zip Sales Worldwide also is the registered owner of: EasyPaidCreditCard.com
(http://www.domaincrawler.com/domains/view/easypaidcreditcard.com)
The church that they are supposedly affiliated with can be found at this link:
http://www.nchurchjc.com/
On their "About Us" page, they admit they have "no buildings" and then toward the bottom come right out and say:"OUR CHURCH IS NOT A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION AND NEVER INTENDS TO BE."
Plus, the address listed as the churches location is also tied to several other websites:
Jr. Hart Racing - http://jrhartracing.com/default.aspx
Southeast Building Services, Inc - http://southebs.com/default.aspx
http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF-8&q=3016+New+Hall+Rd,+Greenbrier,+TN&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&dtab=3&ei=QguXSu7HEZWWiAPEl82NDA&cid=8318956720329344458&li=lmd
Also "Zip Sale Worldwide" is listed as the registrant for a number of rather dubious other websites.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Zip+Sales+Worldwide%22&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=KWT&filter=0
I'll say it again:
Caveat Emptor!
I'm now highly concerned that these guys are in for purposes other than to "help" the residents of the camp and I'm going to report them to the Homelessness Commission and anyone else that can check on their 501c3 status in order to determine exactly where the money they're raising by capitalizing on the backs of the homeless is actually going.
I've taken screenshots of their site for posterity; who knows, it may come in handy at some point.
I'd love to chat with them and have now tried to contact them but was only able to leave a voicemail. I'd like to continue thinking that their hearts are in the right place and maybe they are, but it just doesn't seem to me that someone interested in the best interest of camp members would go about providing assistance in this way.
More as it becomes available...
