Trick or Treat for Frozen Funds

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Date: 
November 16, 2009
Author: 
Kay Guinane

On Halloween a neighborhood kid dressed as a vampire stopped by my house collecting for UNICEF, the United Nations fund for children founded in 1946 "to work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and discrimination place in a child’s path." She had a chart that outlined how many children could be helped with small donations. For example, $25 will provide basic health supplies for 41 children.

This got me thinking about the millions of dollars the U.S. Department of Treasury has frozen and left in legal limbo as a result of shutting down charities as supporters of terrorism. If my $25 could help 41 children, how many could be helped if Treasury would release these funds?
 
To answer this question we got out the calculators and figured it out, using the limited publicly available information on exactly how much charitable money Treasury is sitting on. From news reports we know that there is at least $6 million in frozen funds from two of the nine U.S. charities that have been shut down. The total in "blocked" or frozen assets is $20.7 million, but this includes individuals and non-charitable organizations listed as supporters of terrorism. The actual number is somewhere in between. The startling results are in this chart.
 
For the sake of discussion let's assume the minimum $6 million were released. Then a whopping 9,840,000 children could receive basic health supplies. Or, if we spend the $6 million another way, 10,440,000 children could be vaccinated against polio, or 22,200,000 severely malnourished children could get ready-to-eat nut spread. Or 8,186 families could get tents. On it goes. And the numbers are even more staggering if you use the $20.7 million figure.
 
So, with all the suffering in the world, why has Treasury refused every request to release frozen charitable funds for humanitarian purposes? I haven't heard a plausible explanation yet. Maybe the Congress needs to ask Treasury this same question. They might just be able to do something about it. That could make a lot of kids very happy.