Charities and Fund Raisers

Many charities have begun hiring fund raisers to contact donors for charitable donations. On the surface this might seem to be a logical fund raising method but think again. Fund raisers are in the business of making money - for themselves and the charities are just a means of achieving that goal.

A recent story shows how your donation is not necessarily going to the charity you selected. A fund raiser agreed to raise $5,000 for a local charity. It began making calls telling each prospective donor that their donation would go to the charity. When the fund raising drive was done, $20,000 had been raised. $5,000 went to the charity per the agreement and $15,000 went to the fund raiser. Essentially the first 25% of the calls went to the charity. The fund raiser continued making calls knowing the rest of the money raised would all go to the fund raiser. And it was all legal if not exactly ethical

The moral of this story is - if you feel a need to give to a charity, give directly to the charity and skip the intermediate fund raiser. Then you'll know to whom your contribution is going.

01/07/02 ( 507 )
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