Charity - and the high life !

Once you make your first donation to some form of charity a strange thing happens.   You start getting plaintive letters from other worthy causes streaming into your mail box, begging for a donation.

Charity is big business these days - and one of the cornerstones of success is an ever expanding list of potential donors to keep the dollars rolling in.   Names are a " tradeable " component - and some charities even make money selling donor names to other charities.

The advertising industry makes money devising successful lines of approach.  In some instances they rely on pity - by putting together a harrowing approach showing starving children and destitute families.   Others rely on a form of intimidation.    They include a gift - sometimes a sheet of your name and address to use on mail - in the hope that you will feel compelled to donate in return.

Another component of a successful charity is to enlist a big name person to be either the patron - or to head up the organization.   Sometimes this is a retired politician - and sometimes it is someone from the arts.   It needs to be someone who generates respect.

And then there is the " nuts and bolts " running of the charity.   In many cases these are the " invisible " people  who are unknown to the public, but they drive expensive cars and they draw executive level salaries - and those expenses are legitimately drawn from the funds that the public donate.

There are many worthy organizations competing for donations from the public, but there are also a small number that seem to absorb the greater part of the money that rolls in by way of " expenses " - and only a few cents in each donated dollar actually reaches it's target.

Perhaps the time has come for a law change to require all charities to include the results of a financial audit with each approach.     This should include the amount raised in the latest audit period - and detail what level of expenses were incurred - and how many dollars actually reached that charity's target.

Such a requirement might reduce the requests flowing through our mail boxes to a lesser number who proudly declare how much of each donated dollar achieves the purpose you intended.