ORLANDO – Only Redditors could uncover the type of trashy behavior by the rich and famous you’re about to read. Redditors recently uncovered and are virally spreading the story of a wealthy Florida woman named Nancy Pulte Rickard, the daughter of a successful real estate kingmaker.
Nancy Pulte Rickard, a supposedly devout Christian, is using 501(c)(3) funds to blast her own family! This is a stereotype comes to life, the classic display of vanity by rich people with no self awareness.
What happened to the good old days of charity?
Redditors discovered that Nancy Rickard publishes statements using 501c3 charitable funds (the tax designation for nonprofit organizations meant to help people) to smear her own family members’ charity! She did this both on the charity’s website and social media pages. Rickard came under scrutiny for selling mail-order racial Jesus dolls (yes, you read that right) in the 1990s and is now specifically calling out her well-known nephew, who is known as the Twitter Philanthropist, seemingly trying to compete with him for charity vanity headspace.
What kind of a vain, wealthy woman fights over recognition for charity work?
What makes this even crazier is the fact that Rickard gained notoriety earlier while claiming to be a devout Christian! Not a stranger to controversy, Ms. Rickard was chronicled in the Sun Sentinel this way:
“Poor Jesus. First, he was born in a manger. Then, he died on the cross. Now he’s got a rich lady in Boca Raton making a killing off his image with a mail-order stuffed doll. She calls it ‘the gift of love.’”
This sort of trashy behavior is more representative of what the rich say happens in subsidized housing than what we expect out of someone who lives in the wealthiest of super-rich communities.
Shockingly, the charity – under the instructions of Ms. Rickard – has covered these smears all over the charity’s internet properties.
I guess now the wealthy have finally found a way to grift even more: grift 501(c)(3) funds to trash their own family when convenient. Oh, the spoils of being a spoiled rich girl!
Nancy Rickard is also using the foundation to delete any criticism or questions about her behavior.
Valiant News has reported that when reporters publicly asked the foundation for comment on Nancy Pulte Rickard’s use of the foundation to attack her own family members, the questions were deleted.
It appears Pulte Rickard does not want the public to see that reporters are asking questions about her potential misuse of funds. The foundation also locked several Twitter posts to prevent comments as questions about its impropriety were raised. Separately, a non-profit officer accused of self-dealing was recently arrested and charged in federal court.
Nancy Pulte Rickard is using her position as President and Chairman of the Board at the Pulte Family Charitable Foundation to smear members of her own family.
Pulte Rickard’s smears are not only immoral and unethical but may be illegal as well. The Pulte Family Charitable Foundation’s designation is that of a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Any 501c3 organization has a fiduciary duty to use funds in an appropriate manner.
A criminal complaint was recently unsealed against a 501(c)3 that did not use take appropriate care in using funds. The Pulte Family Charitable Foundation may have run afoul of its 501(3) fiduciary responsibility by attacking family members related to the charity’s founders, which is clearly not the stated purpose of the foundation.
Pulte Rickard’s smears are shameful but not out of character, considering her record.
Remember, she gained infamy throughout Florida for profiteering from selling racialized Jesus dolls back in the 1990s.
The Chicago Tribune ran its own headline on January 1, 1993. In that article, Rickard said the multi-racial, mail-order dolls were not sacrilegious because “Let’s face it. Jesus is down in the trenches with us.”
She told the Tribune the dolls would help children know Jesus because “it’s hard to hug air,” and the outlet reported she suggested the Jesus dolls could also “provide solace for the elderly and infirm, for those in recovery programs and those under emotional distress.”
The number listed to purchase the dolls remains active; however, when Valiant News called to see about making a purchase, the number forwarded to what claimed to be a medical alert company.
While neither outlet appears to have offered a photograph of a Jesus doll with their stories, the Tribune explains Rickard’s “prototype” Jesus was “a white-haired, white-bearded, white man in a long, rainbow-colored robe with all the animals of creation flowing from it.”
Jesus has been depicted in a multitude of ways by various Christian, Muslim, and secular sources, but most scholars accept that Jesus was likely a Judean from Galilee who died between ages 33-38.
Both outlets reported that a portion of Rickard’s proceeds went to children in need, though neither explained what share of the proceeds were donated.
She should resign immediately for this disgraceful behavior.
