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Unpopular opinion, but charities are like carbon credits. Most of the money goes into people’s pockets and very less percentage of the donations actually make i

Unpopular opinion, but charities are like carbon credits. Most of the money goes into people’s pockets and very less percentage of the donations actually make it towards helping the cause they run on. Very few legitimately use the money in the way we expect it to be used. So I’m okay with them losing $400M.

widowlark 4y ago
not based on every other statement in this thread. do you have evidence of this assertion?
xyzelement 4y ago
I upvoted your unpopular opinion but it doesn't have to be that way. You can be involved in the community and get to know local organizations and how they run, then give to them with more certainty. In our case, the bulk of our charitable donations goes to organizations we know first hand, which are mainly local. Eg: helping the local preschool, our houses of worship, etc. The most 'remote' org we give to is the Israeli ambulance corps, but we still "know" them in the sense that my wife had been a volunteer EMT there a long time ago. Point being that - there's some positive synergy between your physical community involvement and your "insight" into how organizations in your community function, and a sense of how the money is spent. The fact that one of these orgs got something like $400 via Amazon Smile from us last year is nice although let's be real - nobody is going to stop using Amazon because of this change.
- luisapic 4y ago
  [dead]
llanowarelves 4y ago
That's truest of the big ones, imo. "Power corrupts" etc., even when that power is a non-profit. I upvoted you since the sentiment is correct. The nice thing about AmazonSmile is that you could pick from the small ones you know well and trust. Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  >Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse. Worse, Amazon has set up their own charities to donate to.
  - llanowarelves 4y ago
    My eyes glossed over those, good catch.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Exactly. Nobody is getting filthy rich off bobs dog shelter but people certainly do milk the big charities. Often the tiny ones that benefited from Smile were run by volunteers and all funds raised were used for non-salary expenses.
minsc_and_boo 4y ago
You can vet your own charities (i.e. checking their 990's to see who gets paid what) and make decisions from there. Just because the charity sausage gets made in ways that isn't always appealing doesn't mean there aren't charities that have impact.
smcin 4y ago
Use CharityNavigator.org or GuideStar to verify charities' overhead %s, at least in the US! The information is only a click away. There are good charities that do spend 70-99% of their revenues on their cause. And there are high-profile charities that don't.
- darth_avocado 4y ago
  Right but those numbers are wrong too. 70-99% gets spent on the cause but I’ll tell you how. If you’re a charity that say collects for homeless people, even if the charity says they spend 90% on the cause, the actual benefits to the homeless people is actually close to maybe 30-50%. They creatively spend money “for the cause” like printing pamphlets or spending on a fundraising event or hiring a “consultant” to strategize on how to fix homelessness or plenty of others. I knew before posting that my comment was going to be downvoted. But it was made from a place of hurt after being involved in multiple charities big and small. There are genuine grassroots community based charities that work well. But they are few. Most well run charities spend at best 60% of the money wisely.
  - nulbyte 4y ago
    > They creatively spend money “for the cause” like printing pamphlets or spending on a fundraising event or hiring a “consultant” to strategize on how to fix homelessness or plenty of others. Printing and distributing pamphlets that educate those with means of influence to make things better does support the cause. Fundraising expenses are overhead and reported as such. Hiring a consultant to help an organization carry out its mission also supports the cause. Just because the organization isn't giving 100% of its receipts into the hands of the homeless directly doesn't mean they aren't helping the homeless. That said, there are probably plenty of organizations with suspicious claims. Take charity: water's 100% claim. They like to use it to appear like they have no overhead, but it's just wordsmithing. It's also a rather egregious example of how being to focused on eliminating overhead can be harmful. https://thefundraisingauthority.com/fundraising-ideas/charity-water-100percent-model/ https://thefundraisingauthority.com/fundraising-ideas/charit...
_n_b_ 4y ago
I’m a volunteer at a branch of Samaritans[1] in the UK that runs on something like £70-85k/year, running a listening service with 60-80 volunteers including infrastructure, who spend thousands of hours a year on the phone with the suicidal, the distressed, and sometimes just those who desperately need someone to talk to. It’s a service that fulfils a critical need but is run on a shoestring budget, with very little of the money spent on anything but critical necessities. Although Amazon Smile wasn’t a huge source of income for my branch, it will leave a hole that will have to be filled. I can’t say I disagree that there aren’t plenty of mega-charities that spent too much on admin and fundraising, but I also know firsthand there are plenty out there deserving of every penny coming their way. [1] https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/our-organisation/what-we-do/ https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/our-organisation...

widowlark 4y ago

not based on every other statement in this thread. do you have evidence of this assertion?

xyzelement 4y ago

I upvoted your unpopular opinion but it doesn't have to be that way. You can be involved in the community and get to know local organizations and how they run, then give to them with more certainty. In our case, the bulk of our charitable donations goes to organizations we know first hand, which are mainly local. Eg: helping the local preschool, our houses of worship, etc. The most 'remote' org we give to is the Israeli ambulance corps, but we still "know" them in the sense that my wife had been a volunteer EMT there a long time ago. Point being that - there's some positive synergy between your physical community involvement and your "insight" into how organizations in your community function, and a sense of how the money is spent. The fact that one of these orgs got something like $400 via Amazon Smile from us last year is nice although let's be real - nobody is going to stop using Amazon because of this change.

luisapic 4y ago
[dead]

llanowarelves 4y ago

That's truest of the big ones, imo. "Power corrupts" etc., even when that power is a non-profit. I upvoted you since the sentiment is correct. The nice thing about AmazonSmile is that you could pick from the small ones you know well and trust. Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse.

boomboomsubban 4y ago
>Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse. Worse, Amazon has set up their own charities to donate to.
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  My eyes glossed over those, good catch.
bombcar 4y ago
Exactly. Nobody is getting filthy rich off bobs dog shelter but people certainly do milk the big charities. Often the tiny ones that benefited from Smile were run by volunteers and all funds raised were used for non-salary expenses.

minsc_and_boo 4y ago

You can vet your own charities (i.e. checking their 990's to see who gets paid what) and make decisions from there. Just because the charity sausage gets made in ways that isn't always appealing doesn't mean there aren't charities that have impact.

smcin 4y ago

Use CharityNavigator.org or GuideStar to verify charities' overhead %s, at least in the US! The information is only a click away. There are good charities that do spend 70-99% of their revenues on their cause. And there are high-profile charities that don't.

darth_avocado 4y ago
Right but those numbers are wrong too. 70-99% gets spent on the cause but I’ll tell you how. If you’re a charity that say collects for homeless people, even if the charity says they spend 90% on the cause, the actual benefits to the homeless people is actually close to maybe 30-50%. They creatively spend money “for the cause” like printing pamphlets or spending on a fundraising event or hiring a “consultant” to strategize on how to fix homelessness or plenty of others. I knew before posting that my comment was going to be downvoted. But it was made from a place of hurt after being involved in multiple charities big and small. There are genuine grassroots community based charities that work well. But they are few. Most well run charities spend at best 60% of the money wisely.
- nulbyte 4y ago
  > They creatively spend money “for the cause” like printing pamphlets or spending on a fundraising event or hiring a “consultant” to strategize on how to fix homelessness or plenty of others. Printing and distributing pamphlets that educate those with means of influence to make things better does support the cause. Fundraising expenses are overhead and reported as such. Hiring a consultant to help an organization carry out its mission also supports the cause. Just because the organization isn't giving 100% of its receipts into the hands of the homeless directly doesn't mean they aren't helping the homeless. That said, there are probably plenty of organizations with suspicious claims. Take charity: water's 100% claim. They like to use it to appear like they have no overhead, but it's just wordsmithing. It's also a rather egregious example of how being to focused on eliminating overhead can be harmful. https://thefundraisingauthority.com/fundraising-ideas/charity-water-100percent-model/ https://thefundraisingauthority.com/fundraising-ideas/charit...

_n_b_ 4y ago

I’m a volunteer at a branch of Samaritans[1] in the UK that runs on something like £70-85k/year, running a listening service with 60-80 volunteers including infrastructure, who spend thousands of hours a year on the phone with the suicidal, the distressed, and sometimes just those who desperately need someone to talk to. It’s a service that fulfils a critical need but is run on a shoestring budget, with very little of the money spent on anything but critical necessities. Although Amazon Smile wasn’t a huge source of income for my branch, it will leave a hole that will have to be filled. I can’t say I disagree that there aren’t plenty of mega-charities that spent too much on admin and fundraising, but I also know firsthand there are plenty out there deserving of every penny coming their way. [1] https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/our-organisation/what-we-do/ https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/our-organisation...