Tag: charities

With all the scams out there I generally do not trust charities either and highly recommend that everyone do their homework before donating:

Close to 60 percent of Koreans are hesitant to make donations to charity organizations as they don’t trust how the funds are being used, a recent survey showed.

The Korea Association of Fundraising Professionals (KAFP) released the results of its survey, Tuesday, conducted at the request of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety. The KAFP surveyed 1,052 people over the age of 19 from October to December.

According to the survey, 424 people, or 40 percent of the respondents, had given donations at least once in the past year, and 56.8 percent of them said they didn’t know how their contributions were spent.

The people who had not given any donations during the period were allowed to give multiple reasons for their decision. Of this number 65.3 percent said they did not donate because of economic reasons and 61.5 percent said because they could not trust the charity organizations.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

South Korea Supreme Court Ruling Considered A Victory For LGBT Rights | NewNowNext https://t.co/7GBm3Sjdcg

— KingSejong (@KingSejong) August 6, 2017

Via a reader tip comes this unsurprising CBS News report on wasteful spending from the Wounded Warrior Project.  This is why I have always advocated that people would be better off donating money to the Fisher House Foundation where far more money goes to their programs.  Plus you can visit your local military base and see where your money is going to unlike the Wounded Warrior Project:

A CBS News investigation into a charity for wounded veterans, the Wounded Warrior Project, looks into how the charity spends its donation money.

What caught our attention is how the Wounded Warrior Project spends donations compared to other long-respected charities.

For example, Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust spends 96 percent of its budget on vets. Fisher House devotes 91 percent. But according to public records reported by “Charity Navigator,” the Wounded Warrior Project spends 60 percent on vets.

Where is the money is going? (………)

According to the charity’s tax forms, spending on conferences and meetings went from $1.7 million in 2010, to $26 million in 2014. That’s about the same amount the group spends on combat stress recovery — its top program.  ]

Former employees say spending has skyrocketed since Steven Nardizzi took over as CEO in 2009. Many point to the 2014 annual meeting at a luxury resort in Colorado Springs as typical of his style.

“He rappelled down the side of a building at one of the all hands events. He’s come in on a Segway, he’s come in on a horse.”

About 500 staff members attended the four-day conference in Colorado. The price tag? About $3 million.

“Donors don’t want you to have a $2,500 bar tab. Donors don’t want you to fly every staff member once a year to some five-star resort and whoop it up and call it team building,” said Millette.  [CBS News]

You can read the rest at the link.

I have been dubious of the whole ALS ice bucket challenge and this is why:

On Friday morning, the ALS Association announced that donations related to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge had surpassed $100 million in only a month. To put that number into  perspective, that is a 3,500 percent increase from the $2.8 million that the ALS Association raised during the same time period last year. More than 3 million people have donated, the association says.

From a marketing standpoint, the ice bucket challenge is pure genius. The marketing campaign has eclipsed everything else in the charitable fundraising industry, according to experts. It’s fun to do, fun to watch and easy to nominate someone else to participate.

But critics are now saying only a fraction of the money raised is actually going toward ALS research.

According to charitable watchdog groups like the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), over 73 percent of all donations raised are going to fundraising, overhead, executive salaries, and external donations. The ECFA won’t deem a nonprofit as a reliable charity unless at least 80 percent of donations make it to their intended projects.

Other charitable watchdogs are citing a pie chart on the ALS Association’s own website that breaks down how it spends the money it receives. According to the chart, 28 percent is spent on research.   [The MIssourian]

The ice bucket challenge has been so pervasive that as the above picture shows it has even been done in North Korea. By the way for those who are interested in giving to a charity I highly recommend the Fisher House Foundation which Charity Navigator has listed as putting 94.7% of their donations towards their programs.  You can go to just about any major military base and see the impact of a Fisher House.