Corruption in non-profit organisations

[Urban Ranger]

Spinned off from the "Promoting Red Cross Donations" thread

che mentioned the American Red Cross has a corruption problem and the Quakers are better. Jon pointed out the ARC has "only" a 20% corruption (which I took to mean that 20% of the donations is used for non-essential things internally).

Are there any studies on this? Or perhaps more generally, percentage of donations that are actually used for stated purposes.

Locally, World Vision is said to have an 80% (!) admin "overhead," so I don't bother donate to them. Of course, I also heard from another source that they are pretty good and delivering the goods.

[Barinthus]

I've seen World Vision in action in Kenya but I don't know how good they are or how much money they actually use toward the purposes they were donated for.

In my experience NPOs have more corruption than the private sector. I've seen my bosses cheat and lie all the time while my time with NPOs.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Barinthus
In my experience NPOs have more corruption than the private sector. I've seen my bosses cheat and lie all the time while my time with NPOs.

That's pretty scary.

How does Joe Average know which one(s) he can trust?

[:) Smiley]

He don't.

[chequita guevara]

I don't know what JM meant, but I meant actual corruption, where people go to jail and stuff.

Between NPOs and FPOs, it's really hard to say which is more corruption. Of course, one Enron trumps all tha damage ever done by any charity, or even all of them together throughout history. How many companies are like Enron? Probably most of them. They're just smarter at it, and the government lacks the personal to even hope to try and keep them honest, chosing instead to go after the very worst.

[Jon Miller]

what I said was mentioned in some article I think..

not sure of its basis, or even what it was refering to

Jon Miller

[DaShi]

That explains this thread.

[Jon Miller]

I have heard (*from somethingawful) that united way spends twice as much on admin overhead as red cross..

now I don't know about how much each brings in..

JM

[Asher]

That would be because once you make any kind of donation to the United Way they hound you several times a year for more money relentlessly.

They're a bunch of asshats.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Re: Corruption in non-profit organisations

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Spinned off from the "Promoting Red Cross Donations" thread

che mentioned the American Red Cross has a corruption problem and the Quakers are better. Jon pointed out the ARC has "only" a 20% corruption (which I took to mean that 20% of the donations is used for non-essential things internally).

Are there any studies on this? Or perhaps more generally, percentage of donations that are actually used for stated purposes.

Ask, and ye shall receive:

The US Federal government sponsors an annual chartity drive, the Combined Federal Campaign. As part of that capaign, they put out this brochure, which lists thousands of charaties, gives a description of each, and then shows their administrative costs as a percentage of total revenue. For example:

0700 American Red Cross (202)303-4546 www.redcross.org EIN#53-0196605 - A humanitarian organization, led by volunteers, to provide relief to victims of disasters and help prevent, prepare and respond to emergencies. 9.9%

So according to this, the Red Cross spends just under 10% of its revenue on administration and fundraising. United Way spends slightly less -- 9.6%. World Vision clocks in considerably higher, at 14.1%.

[Urban Ranger]

Thanks Dave

[Rufus T. Firefly]

[Patroklos]

Combined Federal Campaign is great, it makes giving charity easy and as it comes straight out of your paycheck before you even see it, it prevents all the "maybe next month" crap that most people pull.

[chequita guevara]

That's really cool.

[DanS]

Yeh, the Red Cross is a bloated non-profit. I'm not so sure giving money to them is the best course of action, although I wonder whether the others aren't just as bad. I also have my doubts about putting stock in the CFC's numbers.