The Doe Fund - Criticism

Criticism

Early in The Doe Fund's existence, George McDonald got in disputes with New York's Coalition for the Homeless for whom he used to volunteer. At issue was requiring Ready, Willing & Able facility residents to apportion part of their earnings to support program expenses, a policy which the Coalition called exploitation but McDonald believed helped prepare them for self-sustaining life outside the program.

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Labor conducted audits of each of its Welfare-to-Work contracts, one of which had been awarded to The Doe Fund. The initial audit report stated that approximately $1.6 million of a $5 million grant was improperly allocated, though this finding was revised in a subsequent 2008 review, which determined that more than two-thirds of the previously disallowed funds had been properly administered.

The New York Daily News charged George McDonald with blurring the lines between his personal and professional life by pocketing the $100,000 honorarium accompanying the 2008 William E. Simon Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Social Entrepreneurship. The Daily News claimed it was intended for his charity, though The Doe Fund's board voted to award it to him for his leadership. The Manhattan Institute issued a clarification stating that these honoraria are awarded to individuals "in the tradition of Nobel Prize and MacArthur 'genius' awards" and that the money was intended for George McDonald individually. The Manhattan Institute has since presented honorarium checks in the name of the award winner, as was customary before they began administering the prize in 2007.

In 2009, the New York Post criticized the charity, questioning the compensation it paid Founder and President George McDonald. In a response letter, the chairman of The Doe Fund's board of directors wrote that their executive compensation is comparable to other non-profit organizations of a similar size and complexity. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) reports that The Doe Fund meets all 20 BBB Standards for Charity Accountability, and that George McDonald's salary is less than 1% of the organization’s operating budget.

A 2010 report by the New York Times questioned whether donations to The Doe Fund by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg or his charities were an attempt to influence testimony in support of Mayor Bloomberg's 2008 bid to overturn term limits. After Mayor Bloomberg's requests for testimony from charities he supported, George McDonald and about 20 Doe Fund employees testified in City Council hearings in favor of easing term limits. Mayor Bloomberg had been a Doe Fund supporter since "long before he first ran for office," according to a mayoral spokesman, and had made large contributions in the years before and after the hearing. A Doe Fund spokesman quoted in the report said George McDonald had given continued "vocal opposition to term limits" for city officials since 1993 when he supported the Coalition for Voters Choice in its unsuccessful efforts to prevent the term limits measure from becoming law.