Opinion & Analysis · Honesdale, PA
Is People’s Playground Project Soliciting Your Money in Violation of Pennsylvania Law?
Go to the Pennsylvania Bureau of Charitable Organizations database. Type in “People’s Playground Project.” Hit search. Nothing. Try “PPP Honesdale.” Still nothing.
That’s not a paperwork gap. That’s a violation of state law.
Under Pennsylvania’s Solicitation of Funds for Charitable Purposes Act — 10 P.S. § 162.5 and § 162.6 — any organization that receives more than $25,000 in contributions must register with the state within 30 days of crossing that threshold. The $25,000 figure isn’t a ceiling to aim for — it’s the boundary of the small-org exemption. Cross it and you have 30 days to file a BCO-10 with the PA Bureau of Charitable Organizations. PPP has been publicly soliciting toward a $400,000 goal since October 2025. That window should have closed a long time ago.
PPP publicly announced a $400,000 fundraising goal.
PPP is not registered with the Pennsylvania Bureau of Charitable Organizations.
PPP has been soliciting public donations since October 2025.
They knew the goal. They knew the law applied. They asked anyway. Every ask — from the first Facebook post past $25,000 — was potentially illegal.
“WCCF Covers Them” — No It Doesn’t
This is the argument PPP’s defenders will make. It’s wrong.
Pennsylvania’s Charitable Solicitation Act — 10 P.S. § 162.3 — defines a charitable organization as any entity that solicits or receives contributions for charitable purposes. It doesn’t matter whether PPP has its own 501(c)(3) or is riding WCCF’s. The law asks one question: who’s doing the asking? PPP’s name is on the Facebook post. PPP’s branding is on every campaign page. PPP is doing the asking. WCCF’s registration covers WCCF — not every outside group that parks money there.
And here’s what that structure actually means for oversight.
Under IRS rules for community foundations, WCCF is legally required to maintain what’s called variance power — the authority to redirect funds if the original purpose becomes unnecessary or inconsistent with charitable needs. WCCF’s board is supposed to approve expenditures, verify spending aligns with charitable purpose, maintain records, and exercise independent judgment. They are not supposed to rubber-stamp whatever the outside group requests.
When the outside group raising the money — PPP — is run by the domestic partner of a WCCF employee, and that employee is also the mayor of the borough receiving the playground, the independence required by law becomes impossible. PPP tells WCCF how to spend the money. WCCF’s employee lives with PPP’s founder — and that same employee is the mayor of the borough the funds are allocated to. Nobody independent is watching anything.
That’s not a technicality. That’s a closed loop with no exit — and it exists because PPP was placed between the donors and the foundation.
Who Runs It
PPP was founded by Lisa Glover and Kendra Nelson.
Lisa Glover sits on the board of the Wayne County Arts Alliance. She sits on the board of Known Grove Sacred Land Stewardship. She lives with Honesdale Mayor Derek Williams. Williams is the Community Engagement Manager for the Wayne County Community Foundation — the organization holding PPP’s fund and cutting his paychecks. WCCF charges administrative fees on every designated fund it manages — including PPP’s. Williams and Glover are jointly listed as donors on the WCAA building fund donor wall — a campaign that used community donations to trigger a WCCF matching grant.
Why PPP Exists
WCCF already exists with full infrastructure and grant-making capacity. Glover has direct access to it through Williams. The WCAA building fund already proved the raise-to-match model works. There was zero operational reason to create a new entity.
If WCCF ran this campaign directly, its own legal obligations would kick in immediately. Board oversight. Williams recused. Every expenditure approved. Audited financials. PPP as a named fund inside WCCF sidesteps all of it — the foundation’s fiduciary duty becomes a signature on a check instead of actual oversight.
In my opinion that’s not an accident. The registration law exists precisely to catch this structure — an outside entity raising public money while hiding behind a registered foundation’s credibility to avoid independent accountability. PPP was built to live in that gap on purpose.
Here’s what registration would have actually required at a $400,000 goal: every officer named publicly on a searchable state database, independently prepared financial statements filed with the state, annual renewals, and all solicitation materials disclosing the organization’s registered status. Every connection between Glover, Williams, WCCF, and the borough — on paper, permanently, available to anyone who looks.
But the part that matters most is this: registration would have required PPP to report what they raised to someone other than WCCF.
Right now the only entity with visibility into how much PPP has collected is WCCF. And WCCF employs Derek Williams. There is no independent third party. No state agency. No auditor. No mechanism for anyone outside that circle to demand that number. If PPP raises $180,000 and the playground costs $120,000 — nobody outside that room knows what happened to the other $60,000. Not the donors. Not the borough. Not the state.
Registration would have ended that. Independently prepared financial statements reported to the PA Bureau of Charitable Organizations — an agency with no connection to Williams, Glover, WCCF, or the borough — would account for every dollar publicly.
That’s the one thing this entire structure was built to prevent.
“Just Moms and Grandmothers”
When Lisa Glover introduced PPP to borough council she described it as a group of volunteer residents — moms and grandmothers who stepped up for their community. It’s a disarming image. Hard to question. Hard to criticize.
It’s also staged.
Glover sits on the board of the Wayne County Arts Alliance. She sits on the board of Known Grove Sacred Land Stewardship. She is the project manager of record for the Central Park stump art installation. She is the co-founder and public face of a $400,000 fundraising operation running through a community foundation. That is not a concerned parent who showed up at a meeting. That is a professional with specific institutional connections presenting herself as a neighbor with nothing but good intentions.
The “we’re doing this for our kids” framing — the entire sell of the PPP brand — doesn’t apply to her personally. She inserted herself into that “we” on purpose. Because “moms and grandmothers” closes questions. It makes scrutiny feel like an attack on children. That’s not community organizing. That’s cover.
Before You Give Them Anything
The children of Honesdale deserve a playground. Nobody is arguing that.
What’s being argued is whether an unregistered operation — apparently soliciting in violation of Pennsylvania law, run by the mayor’s domestic partner, funneling donations through the foundation that employs him — deserves your trust before it answers basic questions.
Ask them. Out loud.
Questions PPP Needs to Answer
- Why hasn’t PPP registered with the PA Bureau of Charitable Organizations? Have they received more than $25,000 in contributions?
- Has Glover disclosed her relationship with Williams to WCCF’s board and to borough council?
- Has Williams recused himself from any involvement with the PPP fund at his employer?
- Who at WCCF is providing independent oversight of a fund run by their employee’s domestic partner?
- If PPP is just a community group with nothing to hide — why build a structure specifically designed so nobody can see inside it?
The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Bureau of Charitable Organizations takes complaints about unregistered charitable solicitation. You can find them at attorneygeneral.gov.
P.S. — Why Any of This Matters
These regulations exist because this has happened before. Someone raised money for a public good through an unaccountable structure and the money went somewhere nobody could trace. It happened enough times that the state had to act.
If PPP doesn’t have to follow the law, who does? If the right connections are enough to make the registration requirement disappear, those rules protect nobody.