Are Your Charitable Donations Ending Up in the Pockets of Professional Fundraisers?

Imagine donating money to charity only to discover that the group ended up with just a few pennies of every dollar you gave or that it even lost money. It happens a lot, even with large, well-known charities.

Often that voice you hear on the phone, asking you to support military veterans, local police officers or the environment isn’t from the charity itself but a professional fundraiser who may be receiving most or even all of your donation. In some cases, the cost of the fundraising campaign can even exceed the amount raised, leaving the charity on the hook for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In its latest report on charity telemarketing (pdf), issued in March, the New York attorney general’s office reported that of the more than $302 million donated to telemarketers registered to fundraise in the state in 2013, only 48 percent went to the charities. The rest went to for-profit fundraising companies in both local and national campaigns. Forty-eight percent actually is the highest amount charities have received from professional fundraisers over the last 12 years, says the attorney general’s report. In 2012, the amount was just 37 percent.

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Steve Says…

Yes – its been that way from the start, but try telling that to an ignorant collecting muppet, those idiots have no idea and they are convinced they are doing good – when in fact they just perpetuate the problem.