CAIR's Finances Take Hit from Legal Woes

by Patrick Poole Location: Hilliard, Ohio, US

UPDATE (06/10/07): Welcome RoP readers and Lizardoids! Things are getting worse for CAIR. Today the amount received by CAIR reads $17,001. They have raised just 0.068% of their monthly goal, even though they are one-third of the way through the month.
(06/11/07) CAIR reports just $100 in receipts today. Current total - $17,101.

This graphic, which appears on the website of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) today, is a testament to the ongoing financial woes of the propaganda arm of radical Islam in America. One-fifth of the way through the month of June, CAIR is just 0.046% of the way towards their financial monthly goal, which is presumably their monthly budget. Earlier today that amount was just $5,837, which means they received $5,690 in today's mail. Even if CAIR collects $5,700 everyday this month (24 days left), that means they will still end up $101,673 short of their goal by month's end. There are possibly several reasons for CAIR's precipitous financial shortfall.

First, the announcement this week by NY Sun reporter Josh Gerstein ("Islamic Groups Names in HAMAS Funding Case", 06/04/07) that CAIR has been named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in an upcoming HAMAS terrorism financing trial in Texas is certain to hurt the organization's fundraising efforts. CAIR supporters will now be much more reluctant to contribute to an organization that they know will be under greater law enforcement scrutiny for fear of being investigated themselves. This is a rational response (though you shouldn't be supporting a HAMAS front group to begin with).

Secondly, as I've discussed in a FrontPage article just a few weeks ago ("CAIR by the Numbers") and a previous blog entry ("Honey, I've Shrunk the HAMAS Front Group!"), CAIR has been hemorrhaging members for several years. Despite the fact that they still claim to be “the largest Islamic civil rights organization in America”, I estimated based on their 2004 and 2005 IRS Form 990s (the latest information they have made public) that membership had falled from a meager 4,761 in 2004 to a startling 2,615 in 2005 - a one-year drop in membership of 45 percent.

This drop in CAIR membership has been correlated in their actual annual financial receipts. In the FrontPage article I noted:

Also seen in the 2004 and 2005 IRS Form 990s is that direct contributions to the organization (line 1) also saw a sharp decline, dropping from $2,166,270 in 2004 to $1,667,057 in 2005, losing almost one-quarter (23 percent) of their contributions from the previous year.

This 23 percent drop in contributions to CAIR was despite the fact that they had more than doubled their fundraising expenses from $262,914 in 2004 to $535,555 in 2005 (a $272,641 increase). What's the saying about throwing good money after bad?

CAIR's role as spokesman for extremist Islam is no suprise, of course, but we're glad that the Feds have finally caught up with the rest of us who already knew that. But it certainly doesn't bode well for CAIR that their own supporters have caught on as well and are abandoning them in en masse.

Maybe in no short time we will be able to spot CAIR spokesman Ibrahim "Douggie" Hooper walking down K Street in Washington DC with a sign that says, "Will shill for Islamic terrorism for food"? Might be hard to fit on a sandwich board, though.