Important Update on Donating to Class Size Matters

Aug. 12, 2019

I hope you are having a good summer. I want to thank you for your generous support to Class Size Matters in the past, and let you know that if you contributed online to us in May or June of this year, including purchasing  tickets to our annual Skinny Award Dinner, those funds were lost because of the apparent collapse of NYCharities.org, the site that we had used for many years to process donations electronically.

NYCharities.org was widely used by many non-profits, large and small, because of their small processing fees and the ease of signing up for their services. Unfortunately, as we eventually learned, the organization had not submitted financial reports with either the IRS or the Charities Bureau of the NY Attorney General’s office for three years and had lost their own non-profit status as a result last August.

When we found about this from reporters only a few weeks ago, we immediately submitted an official complaint with the Attorney General’s office, and they are now investigating whether a criminal offense was committed by the operators of NYCharities.org. We also plan to file a legal claim with the Small Claims Court, though whether we will be able to reclaim any lost funds through this process is uncertain.

Thanks to a friend, Shino Tanikawa, who signed up for a GoFundMe account for Class Size Matters, and those who have contributed to us online through that site or sent checks through the mail, we have recouped much of what we lost. We also have a new donation page at www.classsizematters.org/donate

I wanted to alert you to this issue and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. If by any chance you had established a recurring donation to Class Size Matters or any other organizations via NYCharities.org, you should alert your credit card company to stop processing these donations immediately.

If you have any questions just respond to this email.

Thanks again for your support,  Leonie