Everyone works hard to earn a paycheck. Well meaning people choose to donate this money to a charitable organization, hoping to help others. How can we be sure this money will be used properly? Will it reach the right people?
Headlines like the one below definitely are an alert to the fraud involved in charitable donations:
"America's 50 worst charities rake in nearly $1 billion for corporate fundraisers"
Among the findings:
• The 50 worst charities in America devote less than 4 percent of donations raised to direct cash aid. Some charities give even less. Over a decade, one diabetes charity raised nearly $14 million and gave about $10,000 to patients. Six spent nothing at all on direct cash aid.
• Even as they plead for financial support, operators at many of the 50 worst charities have lied to donors about where their money goes, taken multiple salaries, secretly paid themselves consulting fees or arranged fundraising contracts with friends. One cancer charity paid a company owned by the president's son nearly $18 million over eight years to solicit funds. A medical charity paid its biggest research grant to its president's own for-profit company.
• Some nonprofits are little more than fronts for fundraising companies, which bankroll their startup costs, lock them into exclusive contracts at exorbitant rates and even drive the charities into debt.
• To disguise the meager amount of money that reaches those in need, charities use accounting tricks and inflate the value of donated dollar-store cast-offs — snack cakes and air fresheners — that they give to dying cancer patients and homeless veterans.
I will not name any of the above charities in this article; however the donator can enlist the help of the following websites to check on a given charity:
https://www.charitywatch.org/home
http://www.give.org/globalassets/wga/wise-giving-guides/spring-2017-guide-article.pdf
References: http://www.borgenmagazine.com, http://www.tampabay.com, www.give.org