My Nonprofit Reviews

St. Joseph’s Indian School is accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA) regarding our finances. We believe it is a better use of time and resources to submit to a comprehensive review of our organization, rather than the limited assessment provided by the Better Business Bureau. The evaluation with COA includes visits to the school, interviews with staff and families of the children, and evaluates more than just our finances. More information can be found at www.stjo.org/bbb. On November 11, 2014 we had an unexpected visit from CNN, the global cable television network based in Atlanta and New York City. A senior producer and senior investigative correspondent for the Anderson Cooper 360 program were in Chamberlain to write a report on our most recent fundraising appeal to support our mission of serving Lakota children. We are always happy to share our work and our mission. We are proud to carry on St. Joseph’s mission, which is made possible through your generous gifts. As we do with all our visitors, we gave them a tour of our campus homes; the Akta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center; and the recreation center. They had a real opportunity to see the children and many of the programs available to them because of our donors support. Much to our disappointment, CNN showed little interest in the Lakota students and were generally dismissive of the programs and services we provide to help them. They clearly had another agenda: to gather negative information for a story they had already written and to place our faith-based organization in the worst possible light. We want you to know the facts and assure you that our mission to serve is unwavering despite this negative story. We want you to know that your decision to support St. Joseph’s Indian School demonstrates sound judgment regardless of how CNN has tried to portray us. To set the record straight, we took it upon ourselves to fact check the CNN story. Here is what we found:  CNN: “Stories of fake students. Josh Little Bear is not a true person.” FALSE: The stories we share in our mailings are based on real situations. However, in order to protect the privacy of the children, we do not use their real names in our letters to supporters. CNN’s argument rests on saying the stories are made up. We repeatedly explained this to the executive producer, but he refused to listen.  CNN: “On the advice of their attorney, the school refused any further comment.” FALSE: Though we did not consent to an on-camera interview, we did offer, several times, to answer any questions they had in writing. Disappointingly, CNN did not submit such questions. We knew the messages in a taped interview would be taken out of context, exactly as they intentionally did with our mailings.  CNN: “St. Joseph’s Indian school continues to rake in a small fortune in donations.” The onscreen graphic showed $122,185,395. FALSE: This misleading figure shown in the story is the sum of our total assets. This includes a school building for grades 1-8; twenty homes where the children live; the acreage our campus resides on; vehicles; investment funds for our gift annuitants and other items.  CNN: “The fact is that the money is being used for the right reasons. Two hundred Native American children are going to this boarding school, they seem happy, well-fed and housed.” TRUE: CNN got this part of the story correct. And for that we are grateful.