Money Raised For School Flushed Away As Madonna Boogies On

Celebrity charities were invented to generate stories like this to make me happy and laugh. Madonna could do all this quietly, and cut them a check, but no, fundraisers hosted by Gucci, ceremonies in Malawi, and all this other crap to raise money for what? Cars and drivers and golf club memberships for people who have actually done NOTHING. Almost four million bucks and you've got the same hole in the ground.

Also great that Madonna is so busy diligently attending the parties revolving around this charity but just has no idea what they are really doing day to day. It exists to give her a way to display a public face of empathy while she spends time in limos going shopping while others are looting the store. She's got time to raise $18 million and get her picture taken but hasn't a clue.

What a great story. She raised money that was flushed down the toilet and she STILL gets to lecture like a real philanthropist. There's a real education crisis in Malawi? Duh hey, good to know dear! Failure has no impact on the attitude. She gives to high salaried do nothing boobs till it hurts! Those girls in Malawi surely got some trickle down benefits as the hard working Madonna acolytes had their drivers take them to the club. Suh-weet!

Hasn't Madonna given us ENOUGH? Why does she think she has to do more? She should take it easy. She's making a movie about Edward VIII? Was he the King that raised money and gave it to people who hired drivers and joined clubs when they were supposed to build a school?

Why doesn't Madonna have a party celebrating this? Put up these articles as flyers? It only seems fair. How about a Madonnapology party? I would go to that. Call me!

A high-profile charitable foundation set up to build a school for impoverished girls in Malawi, founded by the singer Madonna and fellow devotees of a prominent Jewish mysticism movement, has collapsed after spending $3.8 million on a project that never came to fruition.

The board of directors of the organization, Raising Malawi, has been ousted and replaced by a caretaker board, including Madonna and her manager, officials with the organization said Thursday. Its executive director, who is the boyfriend of Madonna’s former trainer, Tracy Anderson, left in October amid criticism of his management style and cost overruns for the school. These included what auditors described as outlandish expenditures on salaries, cars, office space and a golf course membership, free housing and a car and driver for the school’s director.

Most strikingly, the plans to build a $15 million school for about 400 girls in the poor southeastern African country of 15 million — which had drawn financial support from Hollywood and society circles, as well as the Los Angeles-based Kabbalah Centre International, an organization devoted to Jewish mysticism — have been officially abandoned.

Trevor Neilson, a founder of the Global Philanthropy Group, which Madonna recruited last November amid signs of upheaval at her charity, said he told her that building an expensive school in Malawi was an ineffective form of philanthropy, and suggested instead using resources to finance education programs though existing and proven nongovernmental organizations.

Madonna has lent her name, reputation and $11 million of her money to the organization that she founded with Mr. Berg. She has been a regular visitor to Malawi, attending at least two ceremonies at what would have been the site of the school in Lilongwe, and has adopted two children from the country.

On Thursday, in conceding the shortcomings of her charity, Madonna issued a statement saying she was still intent on using the organization, which has raised $18 million so far, to advance improvements in the beleaguered nation.

“There’s a real education crisis in Malawi,” she said. “Sixty-seven percent of girls don’t go to secondary school, and this is simply unacceptable. Our team is going to work hard to address this in every way we can.” She and her aides offered no explanation of why, given her high interest in the project, she had not noticed the problems as they began unfolding.

Mr. Neilson said that an examination found that $3.8 million had been spent on the school that will now not be built, with much of the money going to architects, design and salaries and, in one case, two cars for employees who had not even been hired yet.

“Despite $3.8 million having been spent by the previous management team, the project has not broken ground, there was no title to the land and there was, over all, a startling lack of accountability on the part of the management team in Malawi and the management team in the United States,” he said. “We have yet to determine exactly what happened to all of that $3.8 million. We have not accounted for all the funds that were used.”

A written report by the Global Philanthropy Group, a copy of which was provided Thursday by the Kabbalah Centre, was critical of two former officials of the organization: Philippe van den Bossche, who has worked for Madonna since 2004 and was the executive director of Raising Malawi from 2005 until October, and Anjimile Oponyo, who worked at the United Nations Development Program when she was chosen last year to head the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls.

Ms. Oponyo said that she was barred from talking about her association with the foundation, and that she could not comment on the allegations in the report of mismanagement — including whether she benefited from an extravagant compensation package that included that car and driver and golf club membership.

In an e-mail, Mr. van den Bossche said he, too, was prohibited from commenting; Madonna has a history of confidentiality agreements with employees.

Mr. Neilson said that Madonna was involved in a film project — she is directing a movie about King Edward VIII — and was not available for an interview.

Raising Malawi will not disband and will instead use its money in different ways to help the poor in a country where Madonna has sought to become a major philanthropic presence, foundation officials said.

Madonna attended a fund-raiser hosted by Gucci in New York in 2008, whose guests also included Tom Cruise and Gwyneth Paltrow, and was on hand for what turned out to be a purely ceremonial groundbreaking and the laying off the first brick at the school. Other donors to the project include the Yankee Alex Rodriguez.

The report faulted Mr. van den Bossche for his roles both in overseeing the planning of the building and in creating the educational curriculum. The report was similarly critical of Ms. Oponyo. “Her charisma masks a lack of substantive knowledge of the practical application of educational development,” it said, “and her weak management skills are a major contributor to the current financial and programmatic chaos.”

[New York Times]