8 ms·

A charity that spends a sliver of its money on those it purports to serve

128 points by alphabettsy 7y ago

psim1 7y ago
See also, Fraternal Order of Police. A quick Google search returns many results of the low quality of fundraising by this organization, which is not rated by charitynavigator because it's actually not a 501(c)(3).
- Cougher 7y ago
  I've never had such angry reactions as I got from these guys.
- thrower123 7y ago
  My fiancee still has a rank sticker on her car from when she was dating a police sergeant before we met. It's gotten her out of so many speeding tickets (she drives like a madwoman...). When she gets a new car we'll have to peel it off and save it. The more cops you know, the less inclined you are to get them involved in anything if you can help it. They aren't as bad as game wardens, but still best avoided if at all possible.
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  I think alot of these organizations operate as a 501c8. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/fraternal-societies https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/...
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  In many cases, the FOP is really "give us money to get a sticker for your car that means some of our members might go more leniently on you". See also: companies on eBay selling counterfeit stickers. See also: the FOP designing stickers almost like vehicle tabs, with color coding so they can see that you're "paid up", sorry, "have donated".
  - chihuahua 7y ago
    In Washington state you can even get special license plates that say "law enforcement memorial" for an annual fee, presumably for the same purpose. I was tempted to get these for my car+motorcycle but then I remembered I haven't gotten pulled over in 20 years so I probably don't need it.
    - bmarquez 7y ago
      In California I occasionally see "11-99 foundation" license plates, for $2500 any non-felon can get one and hope the California Highway Patrol will go easy on them.
      - dresstotheleft 7y ago
        Had to look up the foundation. Why would you need to do a background check to donate? Seems counter productive.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    I love those license plates and fake badges in the windshield. A bonus if they have something patriotic on the vehicle too. Nothing screams I love my country like blatantly advertising corruption and using a tax exemption to do it. Just the other day I met someone who was able to open a gun range in a town that I thought would never let someone do it, and he showed me his gold police union card or whatever and bragged about having the state's police union as a customer for his other business via whom he was able to contact an old police boss, and of course they were able to pull the right "levers" to get the permit for the business issued.
dlhavema 7y ago
Seems like it's too easy to setup a "charity" with little to no oversight. Just my outside opinion with little knowledge of the process or follow up done. This kinda reminds me of the Goodwill reports that came out bashing them...
- wyxuan 7y ago
  This is so true. Even the guidrstar seals of transparency aren't that trustworthy. I filled one out for an nonprofit I volunteer with, and trust me, you can say the most random stuff to get your Platinum seal (their highest rating). They don't check at all.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  The whole charity tax exemption concept is just a big loophole, and I can’t imagine it was created unintentionally. Obviously there is not sufficient manpower for enforcement of the rules, not to mention it’s impossible to make the rules without so much room for plausible deniability that it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.
  - iicc 7y ago
    Ikea
Multiplayer 7y ago
In high school I actually worked at one of these organizations. It was the typical boiler room you might imagine: Grubby, dirty office space in a forgotten retail center with dingy cubicles consisting of a beat up desk, a phone and a stack of 3x5 cards to call. We were taught to do just about everything we could to convey that we were active duty officers calling for donations, without actually saying that. Middle class citizens were all too often happy to donate or, in our case, buy tickets to what I assume was a non-existent fund raiser because of who they assumed we were. The whole system felt 100% fraudulent from top to bottom. I lasted about 3 months and moved onto telephone sales for a major retailer. Back then if you had a deep voice you could make way better money than your friends working at fast food, etc. I can recommend telephone cold calling as a means for getting an extremely harsh but powerful lesson in reading people via voice tone very very quickly. :)
- sokoloff 7y ago
  In hindsight, I can now recall that I gave money to these kinds of operations several times in my 20s. (This was back when answering the phone for unknown callers was a thing I did.)
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  I honestly think it is a valuable skill, but, yeah, lasting 90 days is impressive. I had 3 stints at telemarketing, my first was when I was 14 years old (summer job).
- Havoc 7y ago
  Why deep voice?
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    Many people perceive a deep, masculine voice as authoritative. It's just the same way a big musclebound guy will be taken more seriously than a physically frail person saying the same thing. We haven't evolved as much as we like to imagine.
    - 7y ago
taneq 7y ago
An ex once worked for a "charity" like this. The person running the "nonprofit" drove a very nice car, but as far as we could tell the income (mostly derived from fooling retirees into increasing their recurring donations) went largely to perpetuating the owner's paycheck with a small amount diverted to printing pamphlets.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  Australia used to have (still might, I moved to the US in 2006) a scheme called "work for the dole" ("dole" being slang for unemployment benefits). Be unemployed long enough and you had to do a work program, or learning scheme. I was laid off as a web developer during the first dot com crash. And ended up in one of these - a computer "web" course, run at a church, that'd teach people HTML, etc. One, I figured it'd be easy for me, and two, I could even mentor people. It was a shit show. 10 people, 5 donated computers (which were old, and didn't have fresh installs, so lots of browser bar removals, etc., etc.). Only one copy of Dreamweaver. Lots of screwing around. I'm thinking to myself, I know the government pays people to come up with these schemes and can make themselves a supplier - provide a program, outcomes, and get paid per student to teach them. Why then the donated old computers, the church hall, and the shared copy of Dreamweaver? The second morning, the "tutor" told us the owners were going to come by and check on things. It was two ladies in their 50s. They had near zero familiarity with computers and very little desire to know / learn anything... ... probably because they were too busy discussing the features of their two brand new company cars, Jaguars, that they'd just picked up. Not leased, just purchased outright. With the funds that were presumably to provide computers and educational materials.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >I'm thinking to myself, I know the government pays people to come up with these schemes and can make themselves a supplier - provide a program, outcomes, and get paid per student to teach them. Unemployment/retraining and social services type programs are child's play when it comes to state sanctioned wastes of money. The real money is in the programs judges force people to attend. The people who are really smart (or devious, depending on your viewpoint) make up programs that sound like they screwing people who deserve to be screwed (if you ask the people who take everything at face value) out of their money but are really a much broader dragnet. Traffic school and anything having to do with DUI are the best examples that come to mind but all sorts of "failure to respect the rules set by the government" civil infraction and misdemeanors have accompanying privately run programs that the judges will require people to attend in lieu of jail time or longer probation (both of which cost the state money). These programs can fly under the radar basically forever because a large chunk of the population will turn a blind eye to anything bad as long as you can do some mental gymnastics and make it seem like the bad thing is happening to "criminals".
coldcode 7y ago
Always check the percentage of money donated/used for the purpose of a charity vs how much is spent on overhead/fundraising (using public sources not the charity). Ideally 90% should go to the purpose and no more than 10% to the other. It's sad how many are inverted.
Spooky23 7y ago
There is a whole gaggle of these outfits. In New York, they always have aggressive guys with heavy Long Island accents. The schtick always puzzled me, as I live upstate and the accent sounds like nails on a chalkboard up here.
annoyingnoob 7y ago
Based on the way that cops have treated me, I will never give a dime to anyone supporting the police (legitimate or not). Respect is a two way street, to get respect you have to give respect. Trying to force respect with handcuffs and beat-downs really doesn't work. I'm not sure who I hate more, cops or fraudsters. At least fraudsters are not trying to physically harm me.
- JPKab 7y ago
  I just want to point out that you are taking experiences with people wearing a uniform and projecting them onto others solely due to them also wearing the same uniform. If a cop who had just resuscitated a shooting victim were to walk by you, you would hate him for the things other cops have done to you. This is a tribal, bias driven dehumanization of the other. Exactly the problem that many police departments suffer from internally. I find it ironic that you have it as well.
  - Analemma_ 7y ago
    I’d have more sympathy for this view if police officers denounced other cops who broke the law. But they never do: the “Blue Wall” effect where they close ranks around dirty cops is well-known. And if that’s how they want to operate, fine, but it means it’s perfectly valid for us to consider them all guilty.
    - annoyingnoob 7y ago
      ^ This!
    - JPKab 7y ago
      "But they never do". Except when they do. Again, you are saying that every single cop ignores misbehavior from other cops, or keeps silent about it. Evaluate your statement for accuracy. Do ALL cops keep silent, a majority, a slim majority, or a minority? Is that universal from city to city, region to region? Replace "cops" with Muslims and incidents of police brutality with Islamic terrorism incidents and you guys sound like my bigoted in-laws. Your behavior and bigotry worsens the problem you are complaining about. By the way, I've been falsely arrested before, and in the process got thrown down on the pavement face-first with cuffs behind my back. I was 18, and was in a not so good neighborhood in Norfolk, VA. I'm not naive, but I'm also not dumb enough to lump in every cop with the bad ones. When Ghandi said "Be the change you want to see in the world" he meant that you can't wait for the other side to behave in a humanistic fashion. You have to start it yourself, or the cycle of mistrust continues.
blunte 7y ago
Capitalism, American style. When profiteering takes over every aspect of business (and charity), this is what you get. That's not to say another system is better, but as with most things in life, the best answer is some balance between options. That requires giving up some things in order to get other things - usually a trade of short term goals for long term.
- blunte 7y ago
  I don't care about downvotes. People who disagree with this are either ignorant or suppressing the data all around them regarding how commerce and economics has been progressing in the US over the last 30 years. You can downvote me to dead, but what I'm saying is still accurate here. And when you have to step over the homeless people as you exit your expensive SF condo, you can pause to consider that it wasn't always this way.
  - Cougher 7y ago
    If you didn't care about downvotes, you wouldn't have responded to your own post to complain about downvotes twice. It's also possible that some people who disagree with you are not ignorant and they're not suppressing data. They just place a higher importance on some data versus other data.
jc01480 7y ago
This same scheme applies to any “charity” that does not overtly state 100% of their proceeds are donated. And it’s not limited to law enforcement associations. Those commercials you see on TV about starving children, abused animals, suffering refugees, etc. are all complicit. What really happens: executive level and staff salaries are set at the market level for the association. All donations go to cover these “costs” throughout the year. Whatever is left over from these “costs” actually gets donated to their target group. The donations usually equal about 10% or less of their received funds. Correlate the executives that run these to other donation groups and you’ll see a pattern of people running them. Unless 100% of the proceeds go toward the target group is clearly communicated, all you’re doing is paying someone’s salary to run a feel-good effort that actually contributes very little to their target. And I’m a cop. Do your research.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Small, local charities usually have the greatest impact. And you can't pay an executive's salary in donated food or toiletries, so charities that run on practical items are great too.
  - bonyt 7y ago
    > And you can't pay an executive's salary in donated food or toiletries, so charities that run on practical items are great too. Except, you can probably pay an executive's salary AND buy more food and toiletries at wholesale rates with an equivalent cash donation. https://www.npr.org/2011/11/22/142661882/a-case-for-cash-donations-instead-of-cans https://www.npr.org/2011/11/22/142661882/a-case-for-cash-don...
    - jjeaff 7y ago
      That's true if people are going out and buying food to donate. But I think many times, people are donating food items that they overbought. Or bought on sale/clearance. Even bulk buys aren't always cheaper than a clearance sale trying to make shelf room for a product that will sell better. There is obviously a need for money to buy in bulk the items that are needed. But if you can donate food that otherwise would go to waste and can be used locally as well, it's a win win.
Luc 7y ago
To get the most bang for your buck: https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.givewell.org/
- jc01480 7y ago
  Nice find! Thanks! Happy holidays to you!
pkaye 7y ago
I never donate to any charity that asks for donations on a phone call. I ask them to email or mail me the information to consider. Furthermore even if it is a charity I know about, I rather donate directly on their website to make sure middlemen don't take their cut.
jeffdavis 7y ago
Although this particular case is egregious, I'd like to point out that donors should not be overly focused on a simplistic view of a charity's finances. A charity that only moves money around should of course be pretty efficient about it. But a charity that actually does things faces the same kinds of inefficiencies as any business. For instance, The Nature Conservancy is a charity I like (I'm not necessarily recommending them -- do your own research). About 2/3 of the raised funds go to their actual programs, and the rest is administrative and fundraising. However, they are one of the few large environmental charities that actually does stuff to help the environment, and attracts the expertise to do it well. The rest are lobbyists and money-shufflers, which I have little patience for when it comes to charities. In other words, I'm much more tolerant of inefficiency when actually doing something. I think anyone who actually does things would agree that it's not always efficient when observed from afar. But in reality it's much more efficient to go straight to the people who can do stuff than what other charities do: buy time with Congress, hoping that they will pass laws that will either (a) move some money around in such a way that someone (perhaps someone without much expertise) will do something; or (b) force someone to stop doing something, hoping that they won't find a much worse thing to do instead.
- derefr 7y ago
  You would think that the "total efficiency rating" of a charity wouldn't measure just the internal overhead of the company you're giving the money to, but rather how much useful work comes out the other end once the job of actually helping someone has been subcontracted out N times. In such a view, a money-shuffler is clearly less efficient, because in the end they have to give the money to someone else, so they can only add overhead on top of whatever efficiency that someone-else already has.
  - jeffdavis 7y ago
    What is the "total efficiency" of a charity that mainly does lobbying and awareness, and no actual work ever happens?
- zrm 7y ago
  Charities also have an ugly trade off when it comes to fundraising. You can often raise $2 by spending $1 on fundraising at the cost of lower efficiency -- you're spending half the money you raise on fundraising. But which gets more money to do the work, to raise $2 at 50% efficiency or to raise $0 at 100% efficiency?
cjbenedikt 7y ago
Example: American Red Cross raised $500 mio for Haiti, built 13 (!) houses, didn't know where money went!
watertom 7y ago
I consider almost all charities to be scams, it's an easy way for a few people to make a lot of money and everyone else to get shafted.
stevenking86 7y ago
I use givewell ( https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.givewell.org/ ) out of fear of this kind of thing. I have no affiliation with them but I do recommend them due to the way they evaluate charities.
ken 7y ago
I generally assume most charities are bogus until and unless I specifically research it and discover otherwise. For example, the Seattle Marathon has long claimed to help UW medicine, and then it turned out that less than 1% of their money (and none of the entry fees) were going there. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/just-1-of-seattle-marathon-money-goes-to-charity/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/just-1-of-seattle-...
xfitm3 7y ago
The Susan G. Komen breast cancer organization gives only 20% of their donations to cancer research and pays their CEO $684,000 per year.
- amanaplanacanal 7y ago
  Their business seems to be “raising awareness”, as if there are people out there that are still unaware of breast cancer.

128 points by alphabettsy 7y ago

See also, Fraternal Order of Police. A quick Google search returns many results of the low quality of fundraising by this organization, which is not rated by charitynavigator because it's actually not a 501(c)(3).

Cougher 7y ago
I've never had such angry reactions as I got from these guys.
thrower123 7y ago
My fiancee still has a rank sticker on her car from when she was dating a police sergeant before we met. It's gotten her out of so many speeding tickets (she drives like a madwoman...). When she gets a new car we'll have to peel it off and save it. The more cops you know, the less inclined you are to get them involved in anything if you can help it. They aren't as bad as game wardens, but still best avoided if at all possible.
dillonmckay 7y ago
I think alot of these organizations operate as a 501c8. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/fraternal-societies https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-non-profits/...
FireBeyond 7y ago
In many cases, the FOP is really "give us money to get a sticker for your car that means some of our members might go more leniently on you". See also: companies on eBay selling counterfeit stickers. See also: the FOP designing stickers almost like vehicle tabs, with color coding so they can see that you're "paid up", sorry, "have donated".
- chihuahua 7y ago
  In Washington state you can even get special license plates that say "law enforcement memorial" for an annual fee, presumably for the same purpose. I was tempted to get these for my car+motorcycle but then I remembered I haven't gotten pulled over in 20 years so I probably don't need it.
  - bmarquez 7y ago
    In California I occasionally see "11-99 foundation" license plates, for $2500 any non-felon can get one and hope the California Highway Patrol will go easy on them.
    - dresstotheleft 7y ago
      Had to look up the foundation. Why would you need to do a background check to donate? Seems counter productive.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  I love those license plates and fake badges in the windshield. A bonus if they have something patriotic on the vehicle too. Nothing screams I love my country like blatantly advertising corruption and using a tax exemption to do it. Just the other day I met someone who was able to open a gun range in a town that I thought would never let someone do it, and he showed me his gold police union card or whatever and bragged about having the state's police union as a customer for his other business via whom he was able to contact an old police boss, and of course they were able to pull the right "levers" to get the permit for the business issued.

dlhavema 7y ago

Seems like it's too easy to setup a "charity" with little to no oversight. Just my outside opinion with little knowledge of the process or follow up done. This kinda reminds me of the Goodwill reports that came out bashing them...

wyxuan 7y ago
This is so true. Even the guidrstar seals of transparency aren't that trustworthy. I filled one out for an nonprofit I volunteer with, and trust me, you can say the most random stuff to get your Platinum seal (their highest rating). They don't check at all.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
The whole charity tax exemption concept is just a big loophole, and I can’t imagine it was created unintentionally. Obviously there is not sufficient manpower for enforcement of the rules, not to mention it’s impossible to make the rules without so much room for plausible deniability that it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.
- iicc 7y ago
  Ikea

Multiplayer 7y ago

In high school I actually worked at one of these organizations. It was the typical boiler room you might imagine: Grubby, dirty office space in a forgotten retail center with dingy cubicles consisting of a beat up desk, a phone and a stack of 3x5 cards to call. We were taught to do just about everything we could to convey that we were active duty officers calling for donations, without actually saying that. Middle class citizens were all too often happy to donate or, in our case, buy tickets to what I assume was a non-existent fund raiser because of who they assumed we were. The whole system felt 100% fraudulent from top to bottom. I lasted about 3 months and moved onto telephone sales for a major retailer. Back then if you had a deep voice you could make way better money than your friends working at fast food, etc. I can recommend telephone cold calling as a means for getting an extremely harsh but powerful lesson in reading people via voice tone very very quickly. :)

sokoloff 7y ago
In hindsight, I can now recall that I gave money to these kinds of operations several times in my 20s. (This was back when answering the phone for unknown callers was a thing I did.)
dillonmckay 7y ago
I honestly think it is a valuable skill, but, yeah, lasting 90 days is impressive. I had 3 stints at telemarketing, my first was when I was 14 years old (summer job).
Havoc 7y ago
Why deep voice?
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Many people perceive a deep, masculine voice as authoritative. It's just the same way a big musclebound guy will be taken more seriously than a physically frail person saying the same thing. We haven't evolved as much as we like to imagine.
  - 7y ago

taneq 7y ago

An ex once worked for a "charity" like this. The person running the "nonprofit" drove a very nice car, but as far as we could tell the income (mostly derived from fooling retirees into increasing their recurring donations) went largely to perpetuating the owner's paycheck with a small amount diverted to printing pamphlets.

FireBeyond 7y ago
Australia used to have (still might, I moved to the US in 2006) a scheme called "work for the dole" ("dole" being slang for unemployment benefits). Be unemployed long enough and you had to do a work program, or learning scheme. I was laid off as a web developer during the first dot com crash. And ended up in one of these - a computer "web" course, run at a church, that'd teach people HTML, etc. One, I figured it'd be easy for me, and two, I could even mentor people. It was a shit show. 10 people, 5 donated computers (which were old, and didn't have fresh installs, so lots of browser bar removals, etc., etc.). Only one copy of Dreamweaver. Lots of screwing around. I'm thinking to myself, I know the government pays people to come up with these schemes and can make themselves a supplier - provide a program, outcomes, and get paid per student to teach them. Why then the donated old computers, the church hall, and the shared copy of Dreamweaver? The second morning, the "tutor" told us the owners were going to come by and check on things. It was two ladies in their 50s. They had near zero familiarity with computers and very little desire to know / learn anything... ... probably because they were too busy discussing the features of their two brand new company cars, Jaguars, that they'd just picked up. Not leased, just purchased outright. With the funds that were presumably to provide computers and educational materials.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >I'm thinking to myself, I know the government pays people to come up with these schemes and can make themselves a supplier - provide a program, outcomes, and get paid per student to teach them. Unemployment/retraining and social services type programs are child's play when it comes to state sanctioned wastes of money. The real money is in the programs judges force people to attend. The people who are really smart (or devious, depending on your viewpoint) make up programs that sound like they screwing people who deserve to be screwed (if you ask the people who take everything at face value) out of their money but are really a much broader dragnet. Traffic school and anything having to do with DUI are the best examples that come to mind but all sorts of "failure to respect the rules set by the government" civil infraction and misdemeanors have accompanying privately run programs that the judges will require people to attend in lieu of jail time or longer probation (both of which cost the state money). These programs can fly under the radar basically forever because a large chunk of the population will turn a blind eye to anything bad as long as you can do some mental gymnastics and make it seem like the bad thing is happening to "criminals".

coldcode 7y ago

Always check the percentage of money donated/used for the purpose of a charity vs how much is spent on overhead/fundraising (using public sources not the charity). Ideally 90% should go to the purpose and no more than 10% to the other. It's sad how many are inverted.

Spooky23 7y ago

There is a whole gaggle of these outfits. In New York, they always have aggressive guys with heavy Long Island accents. The schtick always puzzled me, as I live upstate and the accent sounds like nails on a chalkboard up here.

annoyingnoob 7y ago

Based on the way that cops have treated me, I will never give a dime to anyone supporting the police (legitimate or not). Respect is a two way street, to get respect you have to give respect. Trying to force respect with handcuffs and beat-downs really doesn't work. I'm not sure who I hate more, cops or fraudsters. At least fraudsters are not trying to physically harm me.

JPKab 7y ago
I just want to point out that you are taking experiences with people wearing a uniform and projecting them onto others solely due to them also wearing the same uniform. If a cop who had just resuscitated a shooting victim were to walk by you, you would hate him for the things other cops have done to you. This is a tribal, bias driven dehumanization of the other. Exactly the problem that many police departments suffer from internally. I find it ironic that you have it as well.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  I’d have more sympathy for this view if police officers denounced other cops who broke the law. But they never do: the “Blue Wall” effect where they close ranks around dirty cops is well-known. And if that’s how they want to operate, fine, but it means it’s perfectly valid for us to consider them all guilty.
  - annoyingnoob 7y ago
    ^ This!
  - JPKab 7y ago
    "But they never do". Except when they do. Again, you are saying that every single cop ignores misbehavior from other cops, or keeps silent about it. Evaluate your statement for accuracy. Do ALL cops keep silent, a majority, a slim majority, or a minority? Is that universal from city to city, region to region? Replace "cops" with Muslims and incidents of police brutality with Islamic terrorism incidents and you guys sound like my bigoted in-laws. Your behavior and bigotry worsens the problem you are complaining about. By the way, I've been falsely arrested before, and in the process got thrown down on the pavement face-first with cuffs behind my back. I was 18, and was in a not so good neighborhood in Norfolk, VA. I'm not naive, but I'm also not dumb enough to lump in every cop with the bad ones. When Ghandi said "Be the change you want to see in the world" he meant that you can't wait for the other side to behave in a humanistic fashion. You have to start it yourself, or the cycle of mistrust continues.

blunte 7y ago

Capitalism, American style. When profiteering takes over every aspect of business (and charity), this is what you get. That's not to say another system is better, but as with most things in life, the best answer is some balance between options. That requires giving up some things in order to get other things - usually a trade of short term goals for long term.

blunte 7y ago
I don't care about downvotes. People who disagree with this are either ignorant or suppressing the data all around them regarding how commerce and economics has been progressing in the US over the last 30 years. You can downvote me to dead, but what I'm saying is still accurate here. And when you have to step over the homeless people as you exit your expensive SF condo, you can pause to consider that it wasn't always this way.
- Cougher 7y ago
  If you didn't care about downvotes, you wouldn't have responded to your own post to complain about downvotes twice. It's also possible that some people who disagree with you are not ignorant and they're not suppressing data. They just place a higher importance on some data versus other data.

jc01480 7y ago

This same scheme applies to any “charity” that does not overtly state 100% of their proceeds are donated. And it’s not limited to law enforcement associations. Those commercials you see on TV about starving children, abused animals, suffering refugees, etc. are all complicit. What really happens: executive level and staff salaries are set at the market level for the association. All donations go to cover these “costs” throughout the year. Whatever is left over from these “costs” actually gets donated to their target group. The donations usually equal about 10% or less of their received funds. Correlate the executives that run these to other donation groups and you’ll see a pattern of people running them. Unless 100% of the proceeds go toward the target group is clearly communicated, all you’re doing is paying someone’s salary to run a feel-good effort that actually contributes very little to their target. And I’m a cop. Do your research.

Waterluvian 7y ago
Small, local charities usually have the greatest impact. And you can't pay an executive's salary in donated food or toiletries, so charities that run on practical items are great too.
- bonyt 7y ago
  > And you can't pay an executive's salary in donated food or toiletries, so charities that run on practical items are great too. Except, you can probably pay an executive's salary AND buy more food and toiletries at wholesale rates with an equivalent cash donation. https://www.npr.org/2011/11/22/142661882/a-case-for-cash-donations-instead-of-cans https://www.npr.org/2011/11/22/142661882/a-case-for-cash-don...
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    That's true if people are going out and buying food to donate. But I think many times, people are donating food items that they overbought. Or bought on sale/clearance. Even bulk buys aren't always cheaper than a clearance sale trying to make shelf room for a product that will sell better. There is obviously a need for money to buy in bulk the items that are needed. But if you can donate food that otherwise would go to waste and can be used locally as well, it's a win win.

Luc 7y ago

To get the most bang for your buck: https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.givewell.org/

jc01480 7y ago
Nice find! Thanks! Happy holidays to you!

pkaye 7y ago

I never donate to any charity that asks for donations on a phone call. I ask them to email or mail me the information to consider. Furthermore even if it is a charity I know about, I rather donate directly on their website to make sure middlemen don't take their cut.

jeffdavis 7y ago

Although this particular case is egregious, I'd like to point out that donors should not be overly focused on a simplistic view of a charity's finances. A charity that only moves money around should of course be pretty efficient about it. But a charity that actually does things faces the same kinds of inefficiencies as any business. For instance, The Nature Conservancy is a charity I like (I'm not necessarily recommending them -- do your own research). About 2/3 of the raised funds go to their actual programs, and the rest is administrative and fundraising. However, they are one of the few large environmental charities that actually does stuff to help the environment, and attracts the expertise to do it well. The rest are lobbyists and money-shufflers, which I have little patience for when it comes to charities. In other words, I'm much more tolerant of inefficiency when actually doing something. I think anyone who actually does things would agree that it's not always efficient when observed from afar. But in reality it's much more efficient to go straight to the people who can do stuff than what other charities do: buy time with Congress, hoping that they will pass laws that will either (a) move some money around in such a way that someone (perhaps someone without much expertise) will do something; or (b) force someone to stop doing something, hoping that they won't find a much worse thing to do instead.

derefr 7y ago
You would think that the "total efficiency rating" of a charity wouldn't measure just the internal overhead of the company you're giving the money to, but rather how much useful work comes out the other end once the job of actually helping someone has been subcontracted out N times. In such a view, a money-shuffler is clearly less efficient, because in the end they have to give the money to someone else, so they can only add overhead on top of whatever efficiency that someone-else already has.
- jeffdavis 7y ago
  What is the "total efficiency" of a charity that mainly does lobbying and awareness, and no actual work ever happens?
zrm 7y ago
Charities also have an ugly trade off when it comes to fundraising. You can often raise $2 by spending $1 on fundraising at the cost of lower efficiency -- you're spending half the money you raise on fundraising. But which gets more money to do the work, to raise $2 at 50% efficiency or to raise $0 at 100% efficiency?

cjbenedikt 7y ago

Example: American Red Cross raised $500 mio for Haiti, built 13 (!) houses, didn't know where money went!

watertom 7y ago

I consider almost all charities to be scams, it's an easy way for a few people to make a lot of money and everyone else to get shafted.

stevenking86 7y ago

I use givewell ( https://www.givewell.org/ https://www.givewell.org/ ) out of fear of this kind of thing. I have no affiliation with them but I do recommend them due to the way they evaluate charities.

ken 7y ago

I generally assume most charities are bogus until and unless I specifically research it and discover otherwise. For example, the Seattle Marathon has long claimed to help UW medicine, and then it turned out that less than 1% of their money (and none of the entry fees) were going there. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/just-1-of-seattle-marathon-money-goes-to-charity/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/just-1-of-seattle-...

xfitm3 7y ago

The Susan G. Komen breast cancer organization gives only 20% of their donations to cancer research and pays their CEO $684,000 per year.

amanaplanacanal 7y ago
Their business seems to be “raising awareness”, as if there are people out there that are still unaware of breast cancer.