Ideally, abolish the IRS and the special interest "charities" will go into the trashbin along with it. But, since that'll have to wait, for now let's just remove the IRS' charters of taxpayer-subsidies for the privileged elite. All of them, no exceptions. Saving $billions$ for the taxpayer sound like a plan?
By Michael, on June 19th, 2013
By Michael, on June 19th, 2013
How would you feel if you donated money to help disaster victims or cancer patients and you later found out that more than 97 percent of the money that you gave never got into the hands of the people that needed it? Sadly, that is happening all over America today. In fact, in some of the worst cases, less than a penny of every dollar that is donated ends up in the hands of those that need the help.
If you can believe it, right now there are 6,000 charities in the United States that use for-profit companies to raise money for them, and in many of those instances the for-profit companies end up keeping more than 50 percent of the donations for themselves. In addition, many charities end up paying their employees “salaries” that are far greater than the total amount of money that the charities actually give to the needy. The Tampa Bay Times, CNN and the Center for Investigative Reporting recently teamed up to conduct an investigation, and they came up with a list of the 50 worst charities in America. They discovered that those charities raised more than $1.3 billion over the past ten years combined, but that nearly $1 billion of that total went to the for-profit companies that raise their donations for them. The American people are being scammed out of an enormous amount of money, and people need to learn the truth about this.
According to the report that was put out, the “Kids Wish Network” is the absolute worst charity in America. The following is how the Tampa Bay Times describes them…
The worst charity in America operates from a metal warehouse behind a gas station in Holiday.
Every year, Kids Wish Network raises millions of dollars in donations in the name of dying children and their families.
Every year, it spends less than 3 cents on the dollar helping kids.
Most of the rest gets diverted to enrich the charity’s operators and the for-profit companies Kids Wish hires to drum up donations.
In the past decade alone, Kids Wish has channeled nearly $110 million donated for sick children to its corporate solicitors. An additional $4.8 million has gone to pay the charity’s founder and his own consulting firms.110 million dollars is a colossal amount of money.
Imagine how much good that could have done if it had actually gone to sick kids.
Instead, it went to enrich scammers that own shady companies that run pushy telemarketing operations.
Apparently “charity work” has become one of the most prominent “get rich quick” schemes in America. The following is how CNN summarized some of the most important findings of the investigation…
– 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.When you get a call at dinner time asking for money for sick children or to help support your local police, there is a good chance that call is coming from a “boiler room” that is being staffed by whatever shady characters that particular for-profit telemarketing firm was able to hire. If you give them money, there is a very good chance that most of the money will be kept by the telemarketers. Finish reading>>
– 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.
