Judy Rogg is the founder of Erik’s Cause, a project she launched after her son Erik, a Santa Monica sixth-grader, died playing the choking game in 2010. Her goal is to educate parents, children and schools about the game’s dangers — the euphoria that accompanies suffocation or strangling, just short of fainting, and can cause brain damage, injury and death.
Rogg signed up with Help Is Here as a fiscal sponsor, she says, because Maggie Lane-Baker seemed so sympathetic to her tragic loss, a “mother-to-mother understanding.”
Following are excerpts from emails Rogg sent the Fiscal Sponsor Directory to help us understand the betrayal she felt during the short time her project was with Help Is Here, especially concerning donations such as a $5,000 grant from Pepsi Co.
Initially we set up the donate button on our Website through Just Gives, which gave us immediate notification about donors so I knew what was coming in. Maggie did not want me to receive immediate notification, but I insisted. In August 2011, I tested it, as did a friend, and it worked.
In early December, a work colleague donated $50 and I received immediate notification. But in late December, another friend told me she had donated $100 — I never received any notification. She sent me her proof, which I immediately sent to Maggie, along with the proof of the $50 donation. Maggie claims she never got either donation.
In January, my nephew tried to donate $50 online but couldn’t get it to work so he gave me a check, which I deposited to the HIH account. I then turned my donate page “private” and asked that only checks be sent, but payable to HIH.
Three months later, Maggie’s consultant told me I had to have an active donate button on my Website or I was out of compliance. She tosses around “out of compliance” the way the Queen of Hearts said “Off with their heads!” but refuses to say how we’re out of compliance or what we need to do to fix it. In the very few cases when she wanted me to fix something and told me what to fix, she refused to disburse the requested funds to do it.
I agreed to reactivate the donation button on my site but only if it gave me immediate notification. I was told that would cost $240. I agreed to put 50% of the money upfront and told the consultant that Maggie had the funds. I submitted the appropriate request for disbursement. Her consultant told me Maggie had authorized the IT work to reactivate the button and she would expedite it. Three weeks later, I discovered she never disbursed the payment or even talked with her IT person about doing the work.
In late 2011, Rogg entered Erik’s Cause in an online voting contest, sponsored by Pepsi, that gave away millions to projects with “great ideas.” Her project came in sixth and was awarded a $5,000 grant.
Pepsi has informed me that even though the $5,000 grant check was mailed to Maggie and deposited by her, I’m legally responsible for either spending the funds or returning the $5,000 to Pepsi by Sept. 30, 2012, because I signed the grant agreement.
The only saving grace is that Pepsi is willing to accept receipts for costs I spent out of my own pocket so I can keep Erik’s Cause from being reported to the IRS. Help Is Here now owes Erik’s Cause $9,637, as opposed to the $4,637 I reported earlier.
Maggie refuses to return the Pepsi grant. She refuses to transfer Erik’s Cause’s remaining funds to another legitimate 501(c)(3) public charity. She refuses to remove the donate button from Erik’s Cause on HIH’s Website — and in that way continues to steal from unsuspecting, well-meaning donors. This, of course, is when the Website is functional — as of early August, it’s been suspended again. (The site was up again as of mid-August.) She refused my letters of termination with HIH sent via certified return receipt, all returned to me unclaimed and unforwardable.
I sent the first 30-day notice to terminate May 18, 2012, and two more after that. In addition to emailing her the three notices, I sent notices to her accountant, her consultant and HIH’s agent for service of process via email and certified return receipt. I also sent the final one to her via Facebook messaging. At a later date, she blocked me, which means she has to have seen the notice.
Maggie seems to feel that since she’s refused to acknowledge my notices of termination, Erik’s Cause still belongs to her. She’s holding my project and my good name hostage and can collect funds if someone tries to donate through her site. While I have received an accounting, it is only through January 2012. I have no way to know if she has received any donations.
My official last date with Help Is Here was June 18.
Rogg took Help Is Here to Small Claims Court in Los Angeles County Aug. 24. There, a Superior Court judge ordered HIH, represented by founder Bill Mack, to remove from its Website all photographs, text and active donate buttons for Erik’s Cause; return the $5,000 grant to Pepsi; and send the $4,637 to an interim fiscal sponsor chosen by Rogg, who now plans to set up her own 501(c)3.
According to Rogg, Mack, objecting to the judge’s decision that her three termination notices were valid, told the judge that Erik’s Cause could separate from HIH, “but the project stays with Help Is Here forever. We simply find a new project manager.”
“This is not what the agreement states,” the judge said to Mack. “Are you preying on these projects?”
The judge told Rogg that while he has the authority to sign orders in Small Claims Court, he rarely does. In this case, he felt it was warranted.
Rogg expects HIH to appeal the order.
Posted Sept. 7, 2012
Other stories in this series about Help Is Here
Arizona fiscal sponsor accused of taking $300,000 — Part 1
Help Is Here CEO Responds — Part 2