In this installment, we will review how Charlestown Town Council member Lisa DiBello portrayed her charity, A Ray of Hope, to the news media. Leaving aside the internet promotion done for A Ray of Hope by DiBello’s brother Mark Anthony DiBello, and game show appearances by DiBello and A Ray of Hope Board members, the organization got a lot of coverage in the Providence Journal.
These articles often told a poignant story about a family in need and cast DiBello and A Ray of Hope as their rescuer. But those articles also spoke of very large sums of money - $25,000 here, $50,000 there, to the point where the amounts top six figures, presuming DiBello’s claims in the news media are true.
Unfortunately, because DiBello will not disclose her IRS-990 reports, we don’t know if any of the claims in the news media are true – whether she raised as much money as she said, or whether that money went toward A Ray of Hope’s mission of helping the poor.
Non-profit organizations are required to file detailed reports on income, assets and expenses with the Internal Revenue Service every year – and make these reports available to the public. It’s the law, and DiBello has refused to release these reports.
Instead, we must comb the internet and newspaper archives, particularly the Providence Journal, to try to find out what DiBello refuses to disclose. Because the Westerly Sun’s archive is both limited and often protected by a pay-wall, let’s look at how Rhode Island
June 19, 2000: A Ray of Hope board member and Vice-President Lynn Craig pledged to donate half of her winnings to A Ray of Hope from an appearance on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? There is no subsequent article about what happened.
July 19, 2002: A Ray of Hope sets up a Washington Trust account (the ProJo publishes the mailing address where people should send donations) for the benefit of the Ingram family.
July 26, 2002: The ProJo reports “well over $10,000” had been raised in one week. “That’s well in addition to more than $75,000 that’s been raised since 1999.” PROBLEM: A Ray of Hope was not incorporated until April, 2000.
December 5, 2003: A Ray of Hope sets up another special fund, this time for the Boss Family. Donations of goods and services came in from the American Red Cross, General Stanton Inn, Wal-Mart, Ocean Pharmacy and the Cove set up a collection center.
February 17, 2004: The Providence Journal reports that the ProJo as well as other area newspapers had been publicizing how to donate to A Ray of Hope on behalf of the Boss Family.
November 25, 2005: Lisa DiBello is quoted by the Providence Journal as saying that A Ray of Hope had been collecting money for those in need since 1999. Again, there’s the problem of the dates – A Ray of Hope did not come into existence until April 2000.
That’s the last mention of A Ray of Hope in the ProJo. As the Secretary of State’s records show, A Ray of Hope stopped filing any state reports and had its corporate charter revoked for the first time on June 7, 2007.
Based solely on the state Annual Reports, which were sporadic after 2005, it appears A Ray of Hope became dormant after the November 2005 ProJo story. We have no other way to gauge A Ray of Hope’s activity since DiBello refuses to disclose her IRS-990 reports, even though she is legally required to do so.
Not only is that video still on Brother Mark’s website, but there is another video showing Brother Mark using the video of his sister’s win on The Price Is Right in his training classes on how to be a winner on TV game shows.
I don’t doubt that A Ray of Hope helped the Boss Family and the Ingram Family as reported in the Providence Journal. I don’t doubt A Ray of Hope may have helped some other people, too.
But did all of the money raised for A Ray of Hope go to the needy as promised? DiBello is required by law to report the exact numbers to the IRS and release those reports to the public. That refusal by DiBello to obey the law leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
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| WHAT AN IRS-990 LOOKS LIKE. This is the 1st page of the report from the RI Statewide Coalition's 501(c)(3) (click to enlarge) |
At the top of the list, we don’t know how much she collected.
We don’t know whether she started collecting money in 1999 as she said (at least twice) or 2000 when A Ray of Hope was legally incorporated as a non-profit.
We don’t know whether A Ray of Hope ever saw a nickel from the car DiBello won and pledged to donate. We don’t know what happened to Lynn Craig’s pledge.
We don’t know what the organization’s expenses were.
We don’t know how much A Ray of Hope actually distributed to the poor, compared to what they collected.
We don’t know if Lisa DiBello paid any fees to Mark Anthony DiBello to help her get on The Price Is Right, produce the videos and then help her do fund-raising on the internet.
We don’t know how much money was sent to Mark Anthony DiBello’s PayPal account intended for A Ray of Hope.
We don't know what A Ray of Hope paid out in expenses.
We don't know what, if any, assets A Ray of Hope has.
We don't know what A Ray of Hope paid out in expenses.
We don't know what, if any, assets A Ray of Hope has.
We don’t know how much of that money ever went to the people A Ray of Hope was supposed to serve.
We don’t know any of this because Lisa DiBello has refused to disclose this – not to the government as legally required, not to donors and not to the public.
We also don’t know why Lisa DiBello will not release those IRS-990 reports, beyond the sketchy response she sent me in her August 17 letter. Did she ever file an IRS-990 report? All we have to go on, besides her letter, is her track record for filing required state annual reports or her own ethics disclosure forms. Plus the absence of her reports from the two most popular on-line databases for IRS-990 filings.
For all we know, DiBello might have taken care of the basic needs of the few families who were publicized in the newspaper and used the remaining money for some unrelated purpose. But we can’t check, because DiBello refuses to disclose A Ray of Hope’s IRS 990 reports as required by law. If they exist.
If those IRS 990 reports were actually filed and made available to the public as legally required, we wouldn’t have to ask, “What happened to the money?”