Between the recent natural disasters, neglected veterans, and the holidays upon us I see ads everywhere asking me for my money to help others. I enjoy helping people who need help but I don't enjoy helping the rich get richer. In the US a non-profit can spend as little as 7% of donated monies to the stated programs and still qualify for tax exempt status! There are companies that rate charities and make the information public. Here is a couple of US based sites: Charity Navigator Better Business Bureau I had a bit of trouble finding a similar UK based site. Maybe one of our UK based members could help out here?
Its a frustrating thing here in the US. A 'charity' with a similar sounding name to a more familiar, legit organization can easily siphon off funds desperately needed for research and care. Unfortunately theres not much that can be done about it here.
If only you had some kind of assembly who were responsible for making up rules of behaviour that people and businesses have to abide by.
That's why I only donate to known charities at a continual basis. For example, I support a girl in Sierra Leone via sos children's villages. And I donate money to the local charity for the sick, poor and elderly in my village. I don't suddenly give to disaster relief funds when something special happens, because far too often either the money gets wasted, or the help doesn't get to where it needs to be. Besides, when there is PR to be had, governments themselves donate quite a lot of money and resources, whereas the people who don't make it to the headlines depend solely on the money from individuals.
You mean more government regulation?! Hellz no! That'll increase taxes and give more money to those leeches on welfare and make us lose the war! Government needs to stay out of our business! Now, where are we on regulating abortions/women's bodies and fighting against gay rights . . . . .
I can't remember the website but, I'll find it out later and post it up, a few university graduates got together and went through the top few thousand largest charities in Europe and North America to compile a list of who helps the most for the least money and they ended up saying that only one charity on the entire list was worth giving any money to (it was one that provided mosquito nets for free). Everyone else basically didn't provide anything in comparison to the money put in. I've got to go train so will post up the website and the charity that they suggest later, when I find it.
It's easy to slam charities for having high overheads, but that's the reality of operating a large organisation. Sure 7c on the dollar is an outrageously low amount, but anything over 70c is actually really efficient. It can be difficult to find out those numbers though, because the charities who are ripping you off have little incentive to make it easy.
One nice feature of Charity Navigator is they give you a nice breakdown of how charities spend their money. I found one charity for blind veterans that spend 76% of donated money on fundraising while only 18% went to actually help blind veterans! To contrast the Wounded Warrior project, which has been getting a lot of press as of late spends 58% of programs, and 36% on fundraising, they keep their administrative expense to 6%(I rounded all those numbers). While it seems like a lot for fundraising, I think 6% for running it all is pretty good!
