National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Reviews

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donausten@thursdayschild.org

My Role: Professional with expertise in this field & I recovered the girl, had her treated in a medical facility, obtained medicine for her and took her on a plane from L.A. to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to return home.

July 7, 2009

4 people found this review helpful

July 7, 2009

4 people found this review helpful

Highly overrated due to its own media campaign, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has not recovered a single stranger abducted child in its 25-year history. But then it's not supposed to. You see, the National Center, nicknamed NCMEC or NickMeck, is a clearinghouse. It has a website with photos of missing children (mostly parental abductions and runaways), has a page for child exploitation over the internet that goes directly to the Department of Justice, and it provides space for another organization to train police chiefs as to how to respond when a child is missing. The question is, are those services, while valuable, worth $58 million a year? Or is its director worth nearly $500,000 a year for the 28-hour week that he puts in? Very few children in the US are abducted in the way that Adam Walsh or Polly Klaas were; probably less than a dozen a year. NCMEC miffed the Elizabeth Smart abduction by not bringing a trained bloodhound to the scene; one which could have found her since both she and her abductor were only a quarter of a mile away in a wooded area. To date close to half a billion dollars has been spent on this charity, primarily on its website and various members of its staff. Yet when a girl, featured on its website was recovered, NCMEC would not contribute on cent towards her safe return home. It's not what we do, said NCMEC liaison Marsha Gilmer Tullus. "We're a clearinghouse. Our job is not to return missing children home, but to help others to find them." The cost of returning the girl home was less that what takes Ernie Allen, NCMEC's director, less than four hours to earn. According to their 990's, NCMEC has approximately $30 million, above and beyond their annual expenses, sitting in the bank.

The Great!

I've personally experienced the results of this organization in...

the imagination of its staff.

Ways to make it better...

If I had to make changes to this organization, I would...

fire the executive staff.

More feedback...

What I've enjoyed the most about my experience with this nonprofit is...

those periods between contacts.

The kinds of staff and volunteers that I met were...

indifferent

If this organization had 10 million bucks, it could...

be closer to what it should be taking in a year, rather than the $58 million it presently amasses.

Ways to make it better...

they actually showed that they cared.

In my opinion, the biggest challenges facing this organization are...

greed and self-aggrandizement.

One thing I'd also say is that...

NCMEC has been placed on a pedestal. No one has ever really scrutinized what they do (or don't do) because they are led in name by the now iconic John Walsh, who remains on their board of directors.