For Profit Fundraising

Here are some antics from a former colleague and fundraiser of Tom Delay. Or as The Seattle Times says, Some fundraising firms don't help charities much:

Of the companies who passed on the smallest percentages, Virginia-based Richard Norman Co. said it was in the hole $245,000, or minus 13 percent, at the end of the fiscal year. It raised about $1.9 million through direct mail in Washington state for 11 nonprofit groups, including the Conservative Caucus and the Alliance for Marriage, the report says.

Owner Richard Norman, who raises money for political candidates and helped with Dan Quayle's brief presidential campaign in 1999 and Col. Oliver North's 1994 run for Senate, signed the paperwork sent to the state. But he disputed the state's characterization of his company as an ineffective fundraiser.
Norman says his company raises money in several states and is successful on a national level.

"All of our clients make money or they would fire us," Norman said.

One of his clients, the Media Research Center in Alexandria, Va., said Norman passed on about $1.5 million to the center in the past year.

I wrote about this firm during the USANext.org scandal back in February.

This may not mean much in the larger picture, but it helps demonstrate the instituionalization of corruption that a big fish like Delay swims in.