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| Charities that have been around for over fifty years, have they made any changes?
Posted: 4/13/2008 10:21:59 PM | I was thinking about charities the other day. I have seen ads for March of Dimes for ever and yet... the USA has extremly high birth defects, premature births, and over a third of pregnancies end in death for one reason or another. What are they doing with all that money?
What about the places that show starving children? Do they do any good or are they just collecting money? Unicef, save the children, and hundreds of others. Besides printing up brochures, do any of you know something good one of these groups actually did for someone or some group?
I am beginning to think just about everything is a scam, that most things are run by greed and that people have let their ethics slide for greed when they would never let it slide for anything else. I give and give and I get pre printed address stamps, they sell the names because they spelled my name wrong and I got misspelled address labels for years... I wish they would keep the labels and do something good for someone here in the United States.
BL | |
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| Charities that have been around for over fifty years, have they made any changes?
Posted: 4/14/2008 12:10:25 AM | From a very cynical view, my guess is most of the so-called charities that advertise, either with direct mailers or on TV, use more than 50% of the money they get to generate more money. Some Charity watch group did a detailed report a number of years ago (maybe 10 or more) that had some revealing details- one was as mentioned, regenerating more advertising. The other major expense was salaries to the "directors". Some of that is public record, and web searchable- interesting how much the CEO of some of these "charities" takes home, not only base salary but also benefits.
Then there's the non-profits, little local ones... I worked for one, the head of fundraising had a "LOW" base salary of only 50K, but had benefits of car, expense account, and bonuses based on how much he was able to generate in donations. Yup- you read that right. In addition to his regular salary coming out of the donations, so was a bonus- 10% of anything he collected. The organization did a lot of good for homeless, but could/should have done much much more had greedy b@stards not been in charge.
If i recall right, the old study said that after "Expenses" and "Overhead" and "operating costs" of the charity, much less than 25% of your donation is actually going anywhere near the things you think it's going to. Medical charities (cancer, polio, MS, MD, CP) never have any funds for indigent patients- it all goes into medical research... "search for a cure" and line the pockets of incompetent administrators.
Solution- if you feel a need to donate- do so with the knowledge that most of it is lining some already wealthy charlatan's pocket or paying off his boat, or his kids college, or (in the case of some of the religious charities in the news) their hookers.
You can always ask for an accounting of donations. The honest charity will be happy to send you one, showing salaries, expenses, overhead, etc. | |
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| Charities that have been around for over fifty years, have they made any changes?
Posted: 4/14/2008 3:28:03 AM | I believe they make a difference - to the individuals whose lives they touch, if not to the general problems. Children that would otherwise definitely die, live because of the food and medicine donated by charities; they get the opportunity to go to school, to learn how to support themselves. There are millions of excellent projects helping people to help themselves. My favourite charity recently established wells in many villages where the children were having to drink polluted and disease-ridden water. They also trained at least one local person for the position of maintaining the well. Charities like Barnardos over the years have touched the lives of many children and it's something those children never forget. I received letters and drawings from a child in Mozambique whom I sponsored through his school years. I know that the charity made a difference to his life as it does to many.
I think people want to be able to say it's a scam because if they can claim that they cannot help them they can abdicate themselves of the responsibility to do so. It would suit many people very well to not to have any feelings at all that maybe they should put their hand in their pocket occasionally. There will be plenty of people who will present arguments to support your view that the money is better off in your pocket than going to Afghanistan to pay for a well so children can drink water that won't kill them. Look into it for yourself. Take a trip out to one of these places if you still doubt. Some of my students have visited these places and talked with me about them - the terrible problems of AIDs, poverty, repression and the work of charities to educate people to help them to help themselves. The only bad thing about giving to charity is that we don't do enough of it. Not one of us... | |
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| Charities that have been around for over fifty years, have they made any changes?
Posted: 4/14/2008 5:53:22 AM | Well I don't think all these charities can be lumped together. The ones that help the starving Ethiopians have me leery because I've heard bad things about them. The March of Dimes on the other hand, I think they have contributed to advanced medicine and keeping kids alive that otherwise wouldn't have survived. I mean, we can save babies as young as 24 weeks now! Somewhere a difference was made to make that happen. I have a soft spot for MoD though. Had my twins been born 50 years ago they wouldn't have survived and if they would have they would have had major problems. Maybe I just want to believe that MoD is doing their job? I do have to agree that someone always seems to take more of our money for their own greediness than what they should be entitled to.  | |
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