# Irish foundation warns of fake grant offers

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2019/04/16/foundation-warns-of-fake-grant-offers/
- Published: 2019-04-16T07:33:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**The Atlantic Philanthropies has issued a warning about a phishing scam currently
circulating online claiming to come from a Fund representative or Chuck Feeney and
requesting that recipients provide personal information in order to receive funding.**

[Atlantic Philanthropies](http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org) (AP) says these
emails are not official communications and should be disregarded and organisations
should not send money or provide any personal or bank account information.

AP made its final grant commitments in December 2016 and has no more money to award.
AP says even when they were actively making grants, Chuck Feeney, the foundation
and its representatives never randomly offered people money or asked them to send
money.

## Advertisement

AP says there are a number of versions of the email and social media messages (including
Facebook messenger). One example provided is an email purportedly from Chuck Feeney
offering to give $12,500,000 USD to randomly selected individuals:

---

“_Hi,_

_My name is Chuck Feeney, I am a philanthropist and the founder of The Atlantic 
Philanthropies, one of the largest private foundations in the world. I believe strongly
in “giving while living”. My philosophy about life is that you should use your wealth
to help people and I have decided to secretly give $12,500,000.00 USD to randomly
selected individuals around the Globe. On receipt of this email, you should count
yourself one of the lucky recipients._

_Kindly get back to me at your earliest convenience, so I know your email address
is valid and furnish you with more information._

_Visit the web page to know more about me: [https://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/chuck-feeneys-story](https://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/chuck-feeneys-story)_

_Regards,_

_Sir. Chuck Feeney_

---

Other emails claim to be coming from AP’s chief executive Christopher Oechsli and
offering $1 million ‘to randomly selected individuals.’ One of the emails purports
to come from a UK arm of AP using the name Anthony Lloyd and offers £250,000. The
UK office of AP has closed.

From the 1980s to 2016 AP provided grants in Ireland worth nearly $1.9 billion.