Charities - to give or not to give?

I know that as a writer I'm supposed to be impartial, composed, polite etc. etc., but sometimes I bump against an issue that simply makes the blood boil in my veins. It's not that I want to talk about this - I want to SCREAM. I may not change a thing - you are, each of you, your own person who makes independent decisions - but at least I will have tried and it puts my conscience at a bit of rest. So please forgive me upfront if my tone gets a bit heated here and there. I'm fighting my own windmills here :).

Today's word is 'charity' and it's a big, important word. It can be spoken on the same breath as 'compassion', 'sharing', 'generosity' - or at least it should be.

I got curious by the fact, that although I see tens of different charity fundraisers each day, I've never EVER met a person to whom a charity would actually give something (and no, I do not hang out in posh, rich circles).

I was surprised by the discovery that although I have heard lots of rumours about charity scams and frauds, I've hardly ever heard about any actual work they're doing from a living, breathing person other than marketers of charity organisations.

I'm not trying to say here that charity organisations do not do good job. I'm sure they do. Some, anyway.

But some of their practises are pretty questionable, and this is exactly what I'm going to talk about here.

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I'll let figures do the talking. I went through Squidoo Charities list and checked charity organisations listed there at www.charitynavigator.com. They rate, recommend and evaluate charities. They also provide some accounts figures for same and (watch out) the actual salary figure of a top person in 2009 (or in some cases 2010)

Action Against Hunger - $211,284
Acumen Fund - $265,225
AIDS Research Alliance - $136,071
American Heart Association - $554,537
American Refugee Comitee - $160,552
ASPCA - $494,711
Blood:Water Mission - $74,445
Born Free USA united with Animal Protection Institute - $24,750
Prevent Cancer Foundation - $291,869
Children's Defense Fund - $101,749
Covenant House - $267,100
Covenant House California - $243,151
DonorsChoose - $132,036
Earthjustice - $281,604
Ecotrust - $162,721
The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation - $396,086
Global Action - $118,770
GlobalGiving - $165,000
Grameen Foundation - $154,772
Grand Street Settlement - $166,633
Heifer International - $257,129
Hope for Haiti - none reported
The Humane Society of the United States - $234,026
Inner-City Scholarship Fund - $182,051
IRC - $380,818
Jackie Robinson Foundation - $217,517
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International - not compensated (but I simply have to add that the former president received $786,976 - a record!)
Kiva - $132,500
La Leche League International - $66,621
Lance Armstrong Foundation - $285,000
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society - $518,499
March of Dimes Foundation - $633,132
Modest Needs - $257,764
National Wildlife Federation - $313,193
NPR - while the President did not report any salary, in 2009 the Chief Executive Officer cashed in... wait for it... $1,197,861
Oxfam America - $318,258
People for the American Way - $157,903 from Affiliates (whoever they are)
Room to Read - $134,500
Rotary International - $156,699
Save The Children - $365,130
Soldier's Angel - the President not compensated, but Director of Marketing gets $164,583
Tides Center - $216,960 (from Affiliates)
Veterans for America - $202,500
Violence Policy Center - $145,203

All data taken from the Charity Navigator (go and check for yourself). If a charity is not on the list above, it quite simply means I couldn't find it there. They evaluate a great many of charity organisations, but not all of them.

Do you see a pattern emerging?

You know, I DO have a huge problem with that. I'm ok with giving money to those who really need it. I'm even ok with rewarding people working for charity organisations for their time - let's say with the national average salary (just to remind you - for US in 2010 it was $46,326) and I could even throw in 20% extra for the good cause. But I refuse to pay for the CEOs' shark pools, full stop.

I mean WTF? Do you realise what an outrageous amount of money $500,000 dollars is? Most of people on this planet will not earn a pile of cash this high within their lifetime!

All this for people who claim to have interests of the poor and the needy at heart. With that kind of paycheck, what can they know of being poor and needy? I don't quite see the room for empathy here.

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When researching for this article, I happened across a Squidoo lens that beautifully said what I had in mind regards the high-paid executives of charity organisations. It was created by lensmaster known as MSE and you can find it if you follow the big link below. If I was to rate it, I would give it five stars - and mind you, I'm usually extremely stingy with my stars.

MSE touches on all the problems concerning high-paid charity executives, illustrates his thesis with specific examples, invites users to take part in the debate and also touches on another issue that makes me fuming - manipulative advertising. I could tell you more, but hey, go visit MSE lens and see for yourself. I couldn't recommend it more sincerely.

You surely have seen some ads for charity organisations. Whatever the foundation, I can bet my money that the ad has been full of images of suffering - wide-eyed African children, helpless puppies and the likes. I can also bet that it did not contain a word on salaries of the organisation workers, costs of advertising, cost of running an office, travel expenses, etc. etc. Why? You ARE paying for all those things, you know? If we stick to thinking of charity organisations as 'businesses' (as I know some of you would claim), then, as a paying customer, you have right to know what is it that you're buying with your money, am I correct?

I don't quite hold with the idea of 'charity marketing'. I can do without extra advertising, you know? I'm allergic to billboards, leaflets, banners and all sorts of marketing propaganda. I believe that we need a lot less of it around us. Dear charity person, now I'm supposed to give you my money so that you can pay for more ads and make my life this bit more miserable?

A real life story - my partner has been talked into signing up for Oxfam donations a few years ago, by one of their highly-trained sales collection people. It was something around 13 euros, to be taken from his account by direct debit every month. He signed off their list after about a month, so 13 euros was actually all he donated. Until today he receives some marketing Oxfam brochures in the post, all multi-paged, printed on high quality paper, with colourful pictures of African children. So far he must have received junk mail (isn't that how you call unwanted marketing mail?) worth many times more than what he ever donated. All paid for by you, dear donor.

Hereby I'm tempted to add - thank you, our fireplace has never blazed so brightly - but that would be a blatant lie, since I don't have a fireplace. If I had, though, that's exactly where those glossy brochures would end. Remember, we're still talking about the money that you, dear donor, gave Oxfam after they have promised to make those poor children happier with your contribution.

How many people around the world could tell you a similar story, I wonder?

Helping people is a good thing. Paying for more and more unwanted advertisements is not. While I'm happy to do the first, I refuse to do the second. As simple as that.

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Have you noticed what magic the word 'charity' carries? People hear it and somehow stop thinking critically or don't dare to ask any questions. As in:

- He gives money to charity, he's a good person (nevermind he's beaten his wife twice this month only)
- This company donates part of their profits to charity, we can trust them (the price has been raised by exactly the contributed amount, but who cares? They're the good guys!)
- He collects money for charity, don't you dare being unpleasant to him! (forget automatically that he has been trained in sales techniques and is well paid for his job)
- It's for the kiddies (AND our chairman AND our community outing AND those lovely leaflets we're printing by the thousand AND...)

Once the word 'charity' pops into view, good feelings are automatically generated, no questions asked. I wonder how much rubbish is getting swept under the 'charity' rug?

I once worked for a company who did their maths and found out that a press release in a local advertising paper is very expensive, but giving some spare merchandise (with market value of xxx and real value of 0, because it wouldn't sell anyway) gets them their press release for free. They got their half-a-column of being presented as the good guys. Nobody bothered to mention the maths or the fact that product contributed was used to beautify the foundation's headquarters and NOT to help anyone in need.

I'd give them 8 out of 10 on my Personal Dirty Deeds Scale. No one else will, because no outsider will ever find out.

I'm sure this sort of things happens all the time.

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By now you must have formed an impression that I hate each and every one charity organisation in the world. Let me officially tell you - it isn't so :)

I believe there are many brave people out there who freely donate their time and effort, without receiving any kind of gratification besides this lovely glow inside. I believe they need to be seen, supported, helped - and I also believe that the big 'charity' institutions make it harder to see them, with all the billboards and glossy brochures.

I believe small charitable initiative can do much, much more for the people in need (or any other cause) than the giants, simply because they don't waste half of the donations in administrative costs.

It's important (for me, anyway) to make sure that my money goes to the people who need it, not to the CEOs and brochure printers.

Give, by all means. But give wisely. Please?

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