Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences asked for a quarter-million dollar match. After successfully completing that match, many major organizations such as the Philadelphia Public Library and the University of Pennsylvania joined, along with churches and other Christian organizations. Like most modern pyramid or Ponzi schemes, Bennett's was an "affinity" scheme, in which he defrauded people of common interest: in this case, local nonprofit organizations and Christian charities. Using the swelling funds from these churches, Bennett expanded further, establishing offices in Radnor, Pennsylvania. He had glossy brochures and a staff to process all the money coming in. He expanded his sales force by encouraging organizations to take a "finder's fee" of 10% from any money they raised. In other words, if a representative could convince donors to give $10,000,000, the agent could keep $1,000,000 for himself, give the remaining $9,000,000 to New Era and get back $18,000,000 for the nonprofit in six months. And to further increase inflows, in 1993 Bennett started allowing the organizations to donate to themselves, often out of their endowment funds. The directors of the charities who handed over their endowments to New Era were then rewarded with finder's fees. By and large his donors did not ask many questions. When they wanted proof that the money they donated was not being stolen, he provided evidence that the Foundation owned government bonds. However, he was showing the same bonds to everybody, and they had been pledged as collateral on loans anyway. He also had prospective participants speak with supposed representatives of Prudential Bache Securities. Later review showed that the Foundation's tax returns, which had always been publicly available, did not reflect the numerous funds supposedly held by New Era. New Era used a small one-man CPA firm; later review by Coopers & Lybrand identified erroneous financial opinions by this firm as potential red flags. Bennett told prospects that his anonymous donors met several times a year, in person or by phone. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary William E. Simon asked to be admitted to the donor panel. Bennett never responded to the request and Simon gave him money anyway. With the cash flowing through his hands, Bennett made all sorts of private investments. He bought a share of a travel agency and ran all of New Era's travel business through it. He also purchased a publishing house and other businesses. In early 1995, the Foundation for New Era