By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The flyer came in the mail the other day. Tucked between the Lowes ad and the light bill ( I love that anachronism for the electric bill) were photographs of three emaciated children of color living in obvious squalor in an undisclosed Third World hell hole. The bold caption read” A CHILD DIES EVERY 15 SECONDS FROM HUNGER,” and beneath it was a furtive plea for help, capping off with the comment that last year 3 million children died from hunger. You could check off your donation and pay with that status symbol of Western life, your Visa or MasterCard. Millions of middle class selfish, egotistical, uncaring Americans do and hence the appeals keep pouring in.
It is undoubtedly true that some children suffer this sad fate and that the conditions described might exist somewhere, say, Somalia during the recent famine. These kids need help and every compassionate person on the planet would agree. But is this the whole truth? According to the BBC, the “One Child every 15 seconds …” stat is true but misleading. Sort of the marketing of misery to get an emotional response just like the desired reaction when watching a dishwater detergent ad.
The implicit message of my postcard appeal is that millions of children are going to bed hungry every night and ultimately dying from starvation every year and that pennies a day will provide them salvation. The truth is that three million children do die from poor nutrition but in most cases it is education that will save them not cash.
The three million number is an estimate from the respected British medical journal, The Lancet. The marketers of charity have reduced that number to the “One child dies every 15 seconds …” schtick, but the science says something very different. For example, according to Jane Howard of the U.N. World Food Programme, a significant number of these children die from measles whose deleterious effects are exacerbated by poor nutrition and compromised immune systems. Also, the statistic is complicated by double counting. When a child dies from contaminated water, the figure goes under the nutrition stat and also the bad water stat. And the tragedy of it all is that providing that child more food would do nothing to ease his fate.
Most of the countries where kids die from malnutrition are not poor or war ravaged. In fact many like India and Nigeria are not considered poor at all and have plenty of resources to feed kids. The problem is the quality of the diet. For religious and cultural reasons, some women simply do not eat the variety of diet needed for proper prenatal nutrition which then carries over to their offspring. In turn, the kids eat the same diet the parents eat and, while getting plenty of calories that would satisfy the nutritional needs of adults, these kids do not achieve adequate nutritional needs for developing bodies. Thus, the problem is far more complicated (and thus less susceptible to a monied response) than my flyer explains and that’s just fine with Jack Lundie of the If Campaign, one of the charities pulling on your heart-strings for cash. “It may be true that … from our top line messaging you don’t get all the information about the entire problem, but I don’t think it would be realistic to expect that to happen,” he says. Well, how about putting some of that info somewhere on the appeal? Nope, the flyer is too short.
You see it’s not about getting money, but according to Mr. Lundie, it’s more about “establishing the right engagement to allow us to have a more meaningful conversation.” Should I call or just email, Mr. Lundie? And when asked if his appeal might lead people to believe that children are starving from lack of food, Mr. Lundie allows that “some members of the public could make that inference,” but counters that the If Campaign never uses the word “starving.” BEEP, BEEP, BEEP–B.S. Detector Alert!!
Well, maybe these charities have their heart in the right place even if they can’t quite get us the whole truth about the problems they combat. Seems that’s problematic, too. According to CNN, the charity business, and that’s what it is, is fraught with charlatans just waiting to pocket your cash and throw pennies at the victims. One, The Kids Wish Network, that operates out of a warehouse in Florida, solicited millions in donations from hapless Americans over the past decade ostensibly to pay for last wishes of dying kids. How much of that donated dollar made it to the kids? 3 cents! Yep, three very small. The rest went to the charities founder, a cool $4.8 mil, and to corporate solicitation companies who took over $110 million.
Is that unusual? According to the Tampa Bay Times, not at all. In the investigative report, reporter Kendall Taggart noted that 6,000 charities have chosen to pay for-profit companies to raise their donations and some of them mimic the names of more well-known charity names to fool the public into giving.
CNN and the Tampa Times have named their 50 worst American charities and the findings about these groups are startling. Here they are verbatim:
“- The 50 worst charities in America devote less than 4% of donations raised to direct cash aid. Some charities gave even less. Over a decade, one diabetes charity raised nearly $14 million and gave about $10,000 to patients. Six spent no cash at all on their cause.
— 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 fund-raising 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 fund-raising companies, which bankroll their startup costs, lock them into exclusive contracts at exorbitant rates and even drive the charities into debt. Florida-based Project Cure has raised more than $65 million since 1998, but every year has wound up owing its fundraiser more than what was raised. According to its latest financial filing, the nonprofit is $3 million in 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.”
This is not to paint all charities as crooks or cads as some do fine work for less than 20 cents on the dollar for administrative and fundraising costs like Child Fund, International, but the truth is that charity is big business. Thus it attracts the ethical bargain basement of people who see not kids in need, but only dollar signs among the prevailing misery.
For those people interested in how their charity is doing to promote the good or to those people trying to find to whom to donate, I suggest you explore http://www.charitynavigator.org , an organization that independently evaluates charities from a financial and efficiency standpoint.
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Sources: BBC; CNN; Tampa Bay Times;
mespo, Superb post. Happy Father’s Day to you and all the dad’s here. It’s sits a distant second to Mother’s Day but I have no problem w/ that because mother’s are the most important person in our family oriented culture. Plus, real men shouldn’t need accolades or attention, just do our jobs and be rewarded w/ just a little man cave time where we can drink a beer, watch a ballgame and scratch our nuts in solitude.
Blouise, I have ranted here about my personal experiences w/ the wonderful Salvation Army and despicable Red Cross. Whenever I do a PI favor for people, when they try and pay me I ask they just give whatever they were going to give me to the Salvation Army. And I always give them my personal experience, which I’ve given here. You’re a sharp cookie!
Thanks for looking Chuck:
One practice I find particular distasteful is how united way gets involved with companies and local governments to extract money out of the paychecks of employees.
The partnership in my view is often problematic with companies pressing workers to contribute. Sometimes it is truly voluntary, often it isn’t where soft pressure is placed in the employee to contribute. I have personally seen examples where the company has mentioned in employee reviews whether or not the employee has contributed. IT hasn’t necessarily been obvious if an amount was required, but posting any contribution was, whether a dollar or a hundred. There were automatic deductions per pay period or one off ones.
To me this is a form of soft coercion where employees are often led to believe contribution equals a favorable gesture with the management. But often what united way does is guilt trip employees and employers to contribute. having had to experience this in several place I have worked and my family and friends as well I will never give a cent to united way, regardless of what their promises are or how many times I heard they have reformed their practices after some of their leaders have been nicked for corruption and malfeasances.
Darren,
Looked to see if you had any comments in the spam and moderation filters. Nothing there. WordPress must have just eaten it. Try again.
looks like the spam filter might have swallowed my post.
OS,
That has been my experience with the Red Cross and Salvation Army over the years . Different situations but similar results. Salvation Army arrives immediately and gets to work … Red Cross shows up late with lots of press.
I am a much bigger fan of the Salvation Army than the Red Cross. I did volunteer work during a massive flood we had here in the mountains in 1998. That is one reason the story Mark wrote (June 1, 2013) about the deaths of Sheriff Cody Carpenter and Game Warden Joel Campora–and the two women they were trying to save–resonated with me. In our flood of 1998 we had seven dead. We live on a small hill overlooking one of our small rivers. When the water subsided, a van carrying a family of four was found lodged in debris on the riverbank directly in front of our house. Nothing affects me like dead kids.
At any rate, the Red Cross did not do much in our county, but they certainly did make a big splash about being here and made all the news media.
My first real experience with the Salvation Army came in 1952, when an outbreak of super tornadoes wiped out towns all across Arkansas and the mid-south. There were at least 31 supercell tornadoes and over 200 dead the night of March 21-22, 1952. An unknown number were injured. The Salvation Army seemed to be everywhere the next day after the storms. The Red Cross wandered in much later, trying to take over and take credit for the rescue effort, but none of them seemed to be willing to get their clothes and hands dirty–or bloody.
Rescue workers and the displaced were tired, hungry, in shock. Salvation Army volunteers seemed to be everywhere. They were a Godsend, otherwise, most of us would have gone days without coffee or food.
I was there. My father was in charge of the temporary emergency morgue set up in Searcy, Arkansas, so I have first hand experience. We watched the difference in the way the Salvation Army and the Red Cross set up and acted. I have had no use for the Red cross ever since, and that has been 61 years this past march.
Mike S:
Maybe you could share some of those experiences with charities that work harder for their execs than the recipients? I’m all ears.
Mark,
An important and much needed article. The non-profit industry is very good at PR and tugging at people’s heartstrings, but much that goes on there is self-serving by its executives. I first discovered this working for the NYC Human Resources Administration as a Director of Budget and later as a Director of Contracting. I sat on the committee that reviewed budget requests for funding from non-profit organizations. They were almost all heavy in administrative costs. Their top executives commanded large salaries, while their line workers were underpaid. Many of the Executives who’d meet with us impressed me as somewhat sleazy even though they were well respected in NYC. They almost always puffed up the services they actually provided.
After I retired from the City I worked for three non-profits in an Executive role. I was constantly surprised by how little respect my peers had for the clients we served and how patronizing their behind the scenes attitudes were. Disability forced my complete retirement, but truthfully I was discouraged by the lack of dedication towards our clients, the lack of real compassion and finally their patronizing client interventions. My experiences have jaded my outlook towards all non-profits.
There are some good ones though. Sunrise Day Camp on Long Island, Israel and Rockland County, NY is a completely free camp for children with cancer and their siblings. It is a wonderful place that I donate to and we participated in a 5k walk last Sunday. My younger Daughter works for them and of course I’m very proud of her.
Mark,
Before I donate to charities rather than individuals…. I get a distribution statement…. Generally about 75% of all money raised on the industry average goes into fundraising….. The Shriners are no exception…. Just because it is… And they say it…. It does not make it so….
Salvation Army is global:
http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/salvarmy.html
Read up on the work they did during Katrina … they were there before anyone else and are still there today
The Salvation Army A / A– (http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Guide-to-Giving/America-s-Top-50-charities-How-well-do-they-rate)
I wouldn’t give one thin dime to the Salvation Army. Do some research on that crapfest.
Thank you, Frank. Happy Father’s Day to you, too. I also want to thank all the Grandfather’s out there. Without them the day would be a little silly!
The contrast between wealth and health of children in the U.S. is comparable to the way it is around the globe:
(The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy – 3). But this goes on while:
(Starvation Net). Worldwide one is more likely to die of starvation than by terrorism.
Yet we spend trillions on weapons of mass destruction … when perhaps $40,000 a day would keep those dying of starvation alive.
^http://www.charitynavigator.org/
^http://www.charitywatch.org/toprated.html
delete the carrot ^
http://www.charitynavigator.org/
http://www.charitywatch.org/toprated.html
Mark Esposito
Great post with needed information. Thanks for your role as a weekend warrior for insights!
On a lighter note, Happy Father’s Day to all our faithful followers! Hope all the fathers enjoy their children today and that we all reflect on the good times with our own fathers.
Mark Twain: There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.
“establishing the right engagement to allow us to have a more meaningful conversation.” (Lundie) … what a great pickup line … bet he gets all the women.
I donate to the Salvation Army, and, as voltaic mentioned, to local charities where I can monitor the action.
This is a fine public service article, mespo, and, sadly, one which needs to be published every year.
Scams galore. From Wall Street investments to Main Street charities, it’s buyer beware. Little oversight and damaged ethics are rampant in most sales techniques. I only contribute to local charities where I can see the results up close. I give the Red Cross my blood, but I won’t give them my money.