'Tis the season to be well informed when paying it forward
With the Holidays just around the corner, charitable organizations know that now is the time to capture some of the extra goodwill. Many of us who have given will be contacted and asked to donate to different causes to help fund their efforts. While I am happy to help there is one thing that I do look for in a group before I pay it forward - the percentage of my donation that actually goes directly to the cause.
We have a few groups that we give to with some regularity, but we also get calls to help out others. The first thing to ask when you get one of these calls is what percentage goes to the actual group. The other night we got a call to help out the local police and firemen. So after they got through their spiel, I asked what amount actually went into the coffers for these brave men and women, the answer was a less than stellar 27%. (So if I donate $100 only $27 would go to help?) Needless to say I will be putting my money somewhere else where the percentage is more reasonable.
Now do not get me wrong, 100% going to the cause is almost impossible, you have to pay the employees for the foundation, you may need an office and you have overhead costs, but in my estimation anything less than 70% when you have hired a call center to fund-raise for you is not a good return for your contributors/donors. If the amount going directly to program expenses is less than 30% I consider it an unacceptable ratio.
I have found a very nice website that is incredibly helpful for researching charities, Charity Navigator. I was very pleased to learn from Charity Navigator that 88.8% of the money raised for the Children's Miracle Network (Creating real miracles by raising funds for children's hospitals) goes directly to Program Expenses while only 6.7% goes to the Administration. 'Tis the season to give, share and pay it forward.
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