The Shriners employed Vantage to handle fund-raising for the hospitals from 1999 through 2003.
Sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo handle fund-raising; OpenIndie, which has just relaunched after a stagnant period, helps find and build audiences.
Claudia Oakes, the museum's chief operating officer, has taken over daily operations and the museum's board has begun a search for a president to handle fund-raising.
Robert Blagojevich, a Tennessee businessman who moved to Chicago in 2008 to handle fund-raising for his brother, had been charged with four criminal counts, including attempted extortion and bribery conspiracy.
There are also two voluntary boards that handle fund-raising and disbursement and count a who's who of the comic book community among its members: Joe Quesada, Marvel's chief creative officer; Mark Waid, a critically acclaimed writer; and two popular artists, George Perez and John Romita Sr .Hero has helped more than 50 creators with rent, medical bills or finding freelance projects.
National power-brokers balk at letting light-fingered local authorities handle funds.
"The best way to handle funding is to follow the law," he said.
The government alleged that Wegelin had used a U.S. correspondent account at UBS to handle funds for U.S. clients, a standard industry practice for foreign banks.
But U.C.L.A.'s general counsel said that allowing the foundation to handle funds specifically set aside for black students might violate the law.
Anything that enables the poor to build a bit of wealth, handle funds that aren't donated, and get some independence and (perhaps even) power is to be applauded.
Currently, he says, the CTSA program isn't well designed to handle funding for large, multipart research consortiums such as those at Harvard University, Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California, San Francisco.
