Charities !

It seems to be a fact of life that once you donate to a charity that allows amounts over two dollars to be a claim against income tax your letterbox  will receive an endless spate of appeals from some of the 600,000 charities registered in this country.  It is suspected that some charities raise money by charging to hand over their donor list as a valuable trading asset.

In recent times, it has become evident that marketing gurus have been enlisted to plan the approach to lift the donation rate.  There are ever present heart tugging scenarios begging for relief, but many take a new slant by enclosing gifts to try an put the receiver under an obligation.  Peel off name and address stickers are common, but the ante has been upped and now some approaches contain both greeting cards and their envelopes - and handsome upper range ball point pens.

It seems that the Australian tax office is now having a hard look at a tax break designed to assist charities gain quality staff not attracted by salary levels way below those offered in the private sector. A lower pay level is regarded as a salary sacrifice and delivers tax relief set at either $ 17,000 or $ 30,000, depending on the rating of the charity and the salary level involved.

There are some very good charities doing magnificent work to enhance medical research, alleviate poverty and assist many worthy causes, but there are also a few that seem more interested in burnishing their image socially - and providing flash cars for their upper echelon.  It is hard to judge a charity by it's name and it's claims, and perhaps now would be a good time to introduce a measure that would be a common yardstick for public evaluation.

All charities are required to have an annual audit and this provides an ideal opportunity to evaluate precisely what amount of money was raised in the preceding year - and how that money mix was distributed.   The public has a right to know exactly how many cents in each dollar raised went to the cause intended - and what percentage of that charity dollar was absorbed by salaries, collection costs - and the varied items that appear on a balance sheet under listed "expenses "!

That could quickly become the "gold standard "in evaluating a charity and making a donation decision.  It should be mandatory for all and every charity soliciting donations to clearly feature a logo stating the audited percentage of dollars collected that actually reached the stated purpose of the charity.

Not only would this serve to identify charities that perform well below expectations, it would quickly become an incentive to cut waste and improve the appeal in the public eye by an easily identified level of standard achieved.  It could be expected that charities with a high level reaching the target would find this a valuable tool in attracting donations and they would prominently make this achievement conspicuous on their literature.

The important thing would be to legislate to require all charities to adopt this measure of accountability - and set a standard of how, where and at what size it must appear on all their print literature and other forms of advertising.

The search for the charity dollar is ever increasing.  Setting an accountability standard is a sure way of eliminating those charities that serve no useful purpose - and help the charities which keep their costs under control to attract public support.