Charity/Stewardship Organizations

[The Will]

Could someone provide me with a link to a website that shows the budget expenditures of charity and stewardship organizations such as the Red Cross, AMC, Salvation Army, etc.? I'm interested in figures that illustrate how much of your donated dollar goes to an actual cause versus overhead and administrative costs.


Thank You.

[papa john]

I don't know of a website, but the Red Cross said they were keeping 10% of what they had collected for Katrina for "administrative purposes". This was stated on the news by a representative of the Rec Cross. I also heard that the Salvation Army was devoting 100% of funds collected to hurricane relief.

[MOWGLI]

I don't know of a website, but the Red Cross said they were keeping 10% of what they had collected for Katrina for "administrative purposes".

BTW, that is not at all unreasonable. If they can't pay their staff to deliver aid, they will cease to exist.

[papa john]

I wasn't being critical, just stating what I heard. I know they have overhead. In fact they have a recruitment drive on right now, they need 40,000 volunteers to relieve the 10,000 or so that have been working non-stop.

[Seeker]

Could someone provide me with a link to a website that shows the budget expenditures of charity and stewardship organizations such as the Red Cross, AMC, Salvation Army, etc.? I'm interested in figures that illustrate how much of your donated dollar goes to an actual cause versus overhead and administrative costs.


Thank You.
This comes from a site about the federal govt's employee donation program, the CFC, or combined federal campaign...

http://www.charitablechoices.org/categories/all.asp

[MOWGLI]

I wasn't being critical, just stating what I heard. I know they have overhead. In fact they have a recruitment drive on right now, they need 40,000 volunteers to relieve the 10,000 or so that have been working non-stop.

I wasn't jumpin' on ya Papa John. Just adding my .02

[papa john]

Just clarifying. It's hard being in the area where the storm hit, having families whose lives are turned upside down right now seeing the damage. There is so much effort going into New Orleans and some of the areas in Ms and nearby here in Al have little or nothing.

[MOWGLI]

I have some good friends in Mobile who volunteer on the AL Pinhoti Trail. I haven't heard from them yet. My heart goes out to all the good folks all along the gulf coast.

[Tim Rich]

I have some good friends in Mobile who volunteer on the AL Pinhoti Trail. I haven't heard from them yet. My heart goes out to all the good folks all along the gulf coast.

http://charityreports.give.org/Public/Report.aspx?CharityID=679 is the American Red Cross report from www.give.org. 5% Admin, 3% Fundraising, 91% Programs. It meets charitable standards for getting dollars to intended needs.

If you're interested in another relief option, the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is another good relief agency. Their 4% Admin, 1% Fundraising is pretty low. Also, because they are supported by the connectional United Methodist Church, the administrative costs are actually borne by the church, meaning 100% of your donation goes to the effort. This was particularly true during the Tsunami effort, and I believe it is accurate again with Katrina.
http://www.give.org/reports/report.aspx?ID=804&ReportType=1

This memo from the Federal Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) is a good overview of Katrina relief agencies. The percentage at the end of each description is the admin/fundraising percentage of contributions. For CFC purposes, I believe they require that number to be less than 25%, although it can be higher if the charity's making progress in reducing Admin/FR.

http://www.opm.gov/cfc/disasters/katrina-relief.asp

Take Care,

Tim

[CynJ]

I work for a non-profit - United Cerebral Palsy of Southern Connecicut

One of the publications that we get that is really good is the Non Profit Times - here is a link www.nptimes.com (http://www.nptimes.com)

[CynJ]

What I should also mention is that NPTimes has a great chart on their site showing the top 100 charities.

What you need to look for is the total revenues and the administrative expenses.

For instance - United Cerebral Palsy (our national organization) had total revenue of $310,499,014 and administrative expenses of $30,662,172. As a percentage that works out to be 9.88% which is really good.

Anything under 15% is generally considered good in the non-profit circle.

[Just Jeff]

http://www.charitywatch.org/

But there's not much free info there. They list the charities they rate, but the links aren't clickable. The guide is only $3 s&h, though.