Vuitton Sales To Benefit Little-Known Charity

The inclusion of a Louis Vuitton boutique within a retrospective of the artist Takashi Murakami raised eyebrows when the show opened last fall at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Now that the show is arriving, boutique included, at the Brooklyn Museum, the questions about Louis Vuitton's role are multiplying.

Supporters of the museum may be perplexed by the fact that its April 3 benefit, the Brooklyn Ball, which is being sponsored by Louis Vuitton, will feature a "performance" on the issue of counterfeiting — a topic perhaps of more interest to Louis Vuitton than to the museum and its donors, or to most fine artists.

Even more perplexing is the decision by the luxury house to donate a portion of the revenue generated by its store on that evening to a little-known charity, the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation, which distributes small grants to the families of law enforcement officials while spending tens of thousands of dollars on fund-raising and management.

The foundation's Web site lists an impressive board of directors, including the co-head of global investment banking at Citigroup, Raymond McGuire, and the co-managing partner of MSD Capital, Glenn Fuhrman. The former governor of Pennsylvania and first director of the Department of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, and a former governor of Oklahoma, Frank Keating, are listed as honorary directors.

For an organization with such high-profile connections, however, the foundation's activities, as reflected by its tax filings, are modest. In 2006, it made 11 grants, totaling $30,500. Meanwhile, it spent $31,936 on fund-raising and $22,477 on management costs.

In an interview, the foundation's president, Gary Parker, said that its primary mission is to provide financial aid to families of federal law enforcement officers "suffering in times of crisis." The foundation maintains relationships with seven federal agencies: the Secret Service; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Federal Air Marshal Service; Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection. The agencies contact the foundation when an agent dies or is injured or ill.

As an example, Mr. Parker said that on a recent Friday, the foundation received a call from FAMS about an agent who had died of cancer, leaving three children. On the following Monday, a "substantial check" was sent to the family, Mr. Parker said. (Most of the grants listed on the foundation's Forms 990 are in the area of $2,500.)

Mr. Parker said that the foundation will also, at the request of federal agencies, present "an award or plaque" to federal agents, as it did to members of the New Orleans office of the DEA, in recognition of their efforts in rescuing victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Asked why more money was being spent on fund-raising and management than on grants — and whether, in fact, donors would be better off giving their money straight to families than to the foundation, since its grants last year totaled less than half of the amount of money it raised — Mr. Parker pointed to the fact that the foundation was only formed recently. (Its tax records date back to 2002.)

"We're really trying to put into place the seeds that will allow us to grow in the future," Mr. Parker said. "As in any new organization, I think there's a certain amount of expenses up front that may appear to be disproportional, or may be disproportional, but later they will go down as our income goes up." Asked how the foundation got connected to Louis Vuitton, Mr. Parker said that, as an accountant, he does consulting work for the company. In addition, a director of criminal enforcement (i.e., anticounterfeiting) for Louis Vuitton, Kenneth Klug, who is a former agent for ICE, suggested the foundation as a beneficiary for part of the revenue from the Brooklyn Museum store.

A spokeswoman for Louis Vuitton confirmed that the company's choice of the charity was related to its interest in anti-counterfeiting, but declined to comment further. A spokeswoman for the Brooklyn Museum was unavailable for comment.