Kolping Whistleblower: ‘I Suppose Kolping is Becoming a Business Enterprise Now’

Kolping is a non-profit, international Catholic charity based in Germany that is legally required under German tax laws to exclusively perform public services – solely for the benefit of people and society. Today, amassing profits and acquiring properties around the world are growing priorities for this once-wholesome organization. We interviewed a former employee of one of Kolping’s affiliates who explains what he saw and what he learned – from the inside. We are withholding the person’s name and job title, and any information that could identify the person or where the person worked.

Serving the poor and the down-and-out was the life’s work of Father Adolph Kolping, a beatified Catholic priest who spent decades building dozens of “Kolping Houses” throughout Germany in the mid-1800s. Wandering workers could find refuge there. This was truly God's work. Things have changed greatly over the past 20 years, as I wrote in The Berlin Spectator, “Kolping: A Profitable Non-Profit Charity.” Our anonymous whistleblower fills in the rest of the story with first-hand knowledge of how things work inside Kolping. (Note: In this article, "Kolping” refers broadly to organizations, companies and individuals associated with the legacy of Father Kolping and that use the "Kolping" name. This article does not name any specific Kolping-affiliated entity. We attempted several times to contact various Kolping executives and staff to comment, but none responded.)

Mark Worth: You are saying that after so many years in operation, Kolping should be self-sufficient by now. What do you mean by this?

Whistleblower: My concern is to ensure sustainability. Educational support must be sustainable. It is also always about “helping people to help themselves.” That’s what Kolping has been advocating over the last 50 years. They were receiving funds 50 years ago – and a lot. They received a huge amount of money from the government, from “Kolping Families,” private funds, regional Kolping associations around Germany and so on. And they continue receiving it today. And so I ask: what about sustainability? In terms of helping people help themselves, they ought to be able to manage things on their own by now.

I would conclude its development policy has failed. If I only have 1,000 members, I don’t achieve anything. In that sense, they have failed with their membership policy, as well. They always wanted as many members as possible. So in [the country where I worked] at least, it failed.

Did you think Kolping has become too much of a commercial operation?

Yes. There’s not much work to do with members when there are not many of them. I suppose Kolping is becoming a business enterprise now.

And how does Kolping explain this? Is it their intention to make money or to support and help people?

To help people, definitely. You have to give people the skills they need so they can make progress themselves. But the [Kolping] hotels in Germany – they are luxury hotels. I don’t think they help a lot with the international work. They are there in their own right, in my opinion. It is a small circle [within Kolping] that controls these funds. And the money stays in the system, of course, entirely within these companies.

Some hotels have a separate company just for that one hotel?

Exactly. They’re really quite high-profile objects of prestige for certain people who like to be important. And for the directors of these [companies]. So, they make a good living. And that is also the case with Kolping’s educational institutions. They usually have a registered non-profit association. But other activities are often carried out by [for-profit] companies.

Why were they into these money-making activities while they were getting millions of Euro from the German government?

That upsets me, personally, too. They have their own companies, and then they don’t want to have anything to do with the church. I don’t approve of that. On the one hand, they want to use the church to keep their tax-exempt status and claim the full package – and the good reputation as a church [organization]. But when it comes to payments and so on, all of a sudden they are private companies.

It is a refined system with more than 100 companies and organizations in Germany alone.

It’s really intricate. I know in [one German city], they have a GmbH [for-profit company], a gGmbH [non-profit company], and then also an e.V [non-profit association]. The e.V. is responsible for educational measures, because they have to be charitable.

And another detail from the sewing box: these managing directors of Kolping’s educational institutions earn a hell of a lot of money. Some of them were employed by the church or received a subsidy from the church for their salary as managing directors of these institutions. But the director we have in [one German city] is still employed by the church, and naturally for the director this is far too little money. So he receives an additional salary through an LLC [limited-liability company].

So this person receives multiple salaries?

Yes. It’s not OK, that kind of thing. And the papers are classified. Not even the members of the supervisory board are allowed to see them. They say "it is a business secret." Some colleagues requested to see the figures and but they didn’t get them. That’s why I am glad that I left.

Did you stop working with Kolping because of these discrepancies?

Yes, I didn’t like it.

In that city, there are several Kolping companies?

The holding [company] is the roof company, above it all where everything comes together.

Why can’t a non-profit organization do all of the work? Why does Kolping need separate companies, some of which are for-profit?

I am wondering the same thing.

Is this the culture at Kolping? Do things work like this everywhere?

Yes, I think this is in the entire system. Well, everybody’s gotta make sure they make money, or to have as much as possible, in order to exert influence within the organization. That was not the reason Kolping was established.

But there are some great and meaningful things – for example Kolping Houses, which are available for young people to live in. Trade school students can live there and get socio-pedagogical support. That was actually the original idea of these Kolping Houses. This original form of Kolping Houses for young people does still exist. But sometimes it is not really needed, and so they turned them into hotels.

Tell me about the country where you worked for Kolping. What was happening there?

This was a big project involving educational programs and so on. We had hired locals to go out to the groups, and they did really good social work. Also, though, a hotel was set up to accommodate people when you organized seminars. The city administration took it under its wing because Kolping did not pay taxes. So they did not fulfill their obligations. I have photos, which I later took as a tourist, of projects that no longer exist.

Kolping was given the land as a gift, and the land registry says they have to do educational and social work. And if not, the land will be returned to the city administration. And that’s what is happening now. They’ve taken it back.

The former manager for Kolping in [another country] approached me. He also was not pleased with the whole thing, but he was too cowardly to denounce it [at Kolping headquarters] in Cologne. He knew it would not work, but he probably did not want to do anything about it.

Where did all of the money come from?

We actually received a lot of money from Germany for various projects. That’s why we were able to create so much infrastructure – which today, however, is no longer there. One [building] was torn down and something new was built – a very modern [facility]. And within three or four years they sold it again. That was a strange project in my opinion, too. Where did they get the 3 or 4 million dollars to put into that building?

When I talk about helping people to help themselves, it was important for us to make profits in the country so that we could finance the work we did. These were agriculture projects or Kolping Houses for tourists or local people, so we could generate money for maintaining the association, so we would not always depend on funds from outside. But, apparently, this was no longer important: If you get new money from Germany, then you do not need to make money in the country you are working in.