Is Grace To You Avoiding the Appearance of Evil?
Grace To You (GTY) is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization. According to the IRS 990 form for GTY for the 2009 calendar year, GTY received approximately $14,000,000 in contributions that year and held approximately $5,000,000 in cash by that year's end.
GTY has "12 voting members of the governing body." John Macarthur is the President of GTY; his son, Matt Macarthur, is treasurer of GTY; and his other son, Mark Macarthur, is a director of GTY. (John Macarthur's sons are considered to be non-independent board members of GTY.)
In the IRS 990 form for 2009, Schedule L, in the section titled, "Business Transactions Involving Interested Persons," and listed under "Contract Services," it's shown that GTY paid $667,000 to The Welch Group Corporation. The Welch Group Corporation is a production company whose CEO and sole owner is Kory Welch, John Macarthur's son-in law. In the IRS 990 form for 2008, Schedule L, it's shown that GTY paid The Welch Group $741,000 for its services. That's $1,408,000 paid to The Welch Group from GTY for those 2 years. [Update: From 2008-2010, GTY has paid The Welch Group more than $2,000,000.]
It's shown on their website that The Welch Group Corporation has also produced a "concept ad" for Starbucks, an extremely anti-Christian, pro-homosexual, pro-abortion corporation.
In the IRS 990 forms for GTY for 2009, GTY stressed the point in Schedule O--Supplemental Information to Form 990, that operational conflicts of interest are carefully avoided and I don't doubt that interested/related parties are not present when the voting for these contracts is conducted, nevertheless, I would like to raise the following points: GTY, which is a non-profit corp that must publicly disclose its business, is paying The Welch Group, a for-profit company, that doesn't have to disclose its business/earnings. Also, assuming that these contracts have been awarded fairly with The Welch Group being the low bidder, one could still question whether GTY has "avoided the appearance of evil" in awarding these contracts to a firm owned by John Macarthur's son-in-law.
Also of interest from this IRS 990 form for GTY is that Phil Johnson, the Executive Director of GTY, was again well compensated in 2009 with $225,000, while six other GTY board members were compensated $150,000 or more.
