A grey-haired lady recently knocked on the door of a Halifax home seeking a donation to a group that supposedly helps find missing children.The man who answered the door gave the lady $5, but after having a quick glance at the brochure he was handed and doing a Google search on his computer, he caught up with her down the street and asked for his money back.
The resident, who asked his name not be used, at first gave the pleasant woman "the benefit of the doubt" despite her "hokey" ID tag and a receipt that clearly wasn’t for a taxation purposes, but quickly changed his mind.
"In my mind this is a private company operating as a profit centre through our community donations," he said.
The organization in question is called the North American Missing Children Association, whose history includes defections to other groups and having its charitable status revoked by Revenue Canada in 2007 because of annual reports "lacking in content pertaining to the activities of the charity."
John Hughes, who lives in New Brunswick and is listed as the group’s president, said they have abided by the government ruling on their charitable status and do not tell people they are a charity, nor do they hand out tax receipts.
He said they now operate as a small business with five or six people who fundraise for the cause.
"Even though we don’t fit the criteria for a charity, we wanted to keep putting out information to people," Mr. Hughes said in an interview from his home in South Esk, N.B. "It’s mostly retired people who care about the cause."
He said most of the money raised by door-to-door canvassing covers the cost of printing brochures and that their main role is to direct those seeking help to the proper police agency.
"We’re no big corporation," he said. "It’s not a terrible amount of money."
The president said he doesn’t know how much money the group raises as Ted Harris of Dartmouth, whose address is on the brochure for mailed donations, handles the finances.
A call made to Mr. Harris was directed to the president.
The brochure, signed by Mr. Hughes, said the group is "nationally recognized" and "provides assistance to families, friends and relatives in search for their missing loved ones."
The pamphlet also said they work "closely with police agencies by passing on information that helps locate missing individuals."
The group’s name appears on the RCMP’s list of non-recognized agencies working in the field of child protection and missing or abducted children.
The brochure, which lists tips on how to identify strange vehicles or people, also points readers to a dismantled website.
The president said he took the site down when their charitable status was revoked, but at one time it included photos of missing children.
Mr. Hughes, a retired corrections officer, said he only acts in an advisory role these days as he’s in New Brunswick and the once national organization now only operates in Nova Scotia.
The North American Missing Children Association was started in 1995 by the late Linda Davis of Nine Mile River, who eventually left the group to start the competing Garden of Missing Children.
Mr. Hughes said their main role back then was to go into schools to fingerprint children for identification purposes, maintain a website with information on missing children and as work with families whose child had been lost or abducted.
The president said he suggested they dissolve the group when it was stripped of their charitable status, but a dedicated few were determined to continue.
Dianna Cann, executive director for Child Find Nova Scotia, a charitable organization that is recognized by the RCMP, said the public sometimes confuses the North American Missing Children Association for Child Find, but Child Find does not do door-to-door canvassing because it does not advocate opening the door to strangers.
The Halifax man who asked for his donation back said that while the group may be operating legally, he questions giving money to an organization that appears to offer no real service and is not obligated to account for the money it collects.
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