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Wyclef admits foundation failings

By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 21 January 2010

In related news, Wyclef Jean has admitted that his Yele Haiti Foundation has been “poorly run”. As previously reported, as Jean encouraged fans to donate to the charity last week in order to help their involvement in the post-earthquake relief effort, a charity monitor raised concerns about the way the organisation’s finances worked, and at how closely the Foundation was linked to the former Fugee’s other business interests.

Jean initially hit out at the criticism, but has now conceded that the Foundation is not as well run as it could be. Stressing he has never personally benefited from the organisation – on the contrary he says he has pumped money as well as time into the charity – he admits that now that serious amounts of cash are pouring into the Foundation it needs better management.

Speaking to Oprah Winfrey, he said: “When you’re starting a business, it’s important to have the right people around you. When you’re starting a foundation it’s even more important… It’s important you have logistics on the ground – the helicopters, the trucks; that’s the only way you’re gonna make a difference. So the attack on me, it basically came because, once we started our movement, no one was focused on Yele until they noticed that we were raising $1 million a day after the earthquake. What that did is it rose a lot of eyebrows”.

He continues: “Is there a mistake in [the] running [of] the foundation? Of course… Have I ever used Yele money for my personal benefits? No… I put money into my foundation. But I do think it was poorly run and I think that we have learned from our mistakes, and, moving forward, I think we’re gonna be stronger than ever”.