Fundraising Scam Targets Groups

Benjamin B. Schoefer ’09 was skeptical when he received an e-mail last Thursday from ClubFunding, a California-based organization claiming to be in charge of fundraising for Harvard University.

“As soon as you get a free iPod, there’s something fishy about it,” Schoefer wrote in an e-mail.

Schoefer, the president of the Harvard German Society, quickly got in touch with Associate Dean of the College Judith Kidd, who said the messages had no Harvard ties.

ClubFunding claimed that it had already organized fund-raising activities for other Harvard groups and offered a free iPod shuffle for those who agreed to participate in an online offer that could raise up to $600.

A smattering of student organizations, including Hillel and The Crimson, also received the e-mails. “Basically, they use student organizations to advertise their clients’ products,” Schoefer wrote. “The German Society is not interested in such business.”

After Kidd learned that ClubFunding was posing as the “fund-raising coordinator for Harvard University,” she sent an e-mail to all club presidents warning them not to respond. “ClubFunding has no official status with Harvard,” she wrote, asking student groups to let her office know if they had been contacted. The University Development Office was also alerted of the e-mails.

The organization’s website, www.clubfunding.com, claims to have raised $3,500 for the Boston University Dance Team in just two weeks, and to have assisted over 700 universities nationwide. ClubFunding’s website says that “the fund-raisers we provide are brand awareness promotions for our many business partners; such as ATT, Blockbuster, Chase, and Ford Motor Company.”

ClubFunding did not respond to repeated e-mails and phone calls seeking comment.

Many of the student organizations who received the e-mail said they were mislead by its claim to coordinate fund-raising for Harvard, but most simply deleted the e-mail as spam.

“For the Harvard Democrats, we regularly get e-mails from a lot of programs like this that seem to promise something for nothing,” wrote Eric P. Lesser ’07, president of the Harvard Democrats, in an e-mail. “In general, if something looks ‘mass-mailed’, I’ll delete it.”

Another club president, Jonathan A. Stona ’07 of Harvard’s radio station, WHRB, also deleted the e-mail. “It was rather foolish for clubfunding.com to misrepresent themselves when they could have easily found legitimate ways of promoting their services to campus groups,” he wrote in an e-mail.

Stona observed that ClubFunding had lost credibility with its false claims. “Instead of groups actually taking time to learn about their service, students will now mostly just write them off as a scam...they obviously need to take courses at [Harvard Business School],” he wrote.

Although it is common for student organizations to receive mass-mailings, Kidd noted that Harvard’s websites do not post the names or contact information of student group leaders.

She said she had tried to contact ClubFunding twice, but no one had returned her calls.

—Staff writer Kim E. Gittleson can be reached at gittles@fas.harvard.edu.