Stop Insulting the Pond Scum

Last month in this space I commented on the dust-up between the American Cancer Society and the atheist groups that were claiming they hadn’t been allowed to donate money because they were/are atheists. At the time, I strongly implied that this was a publicity stunt on the part of the atheists, staged entirely for the purpose of gaining media attention (and name recognition) because people these days are only too willing to think the worst of any large organization if it allows them to feel superior to someone. At the time I felt (and suggested here) that this was reprehensible because it might influence people to withhold donations, not just from the ACS, but from cancer research in general, ultimately harming everyone who might ever suffer from cancer – a group which would, one assumes, include atheists as well as everybody else. As annoying as this might be, however, it pales before cases of people actually stealing money under the guise of raising funds for charity, such as the case that turned up in Washington State last week…

You can pick up the story from the local television station’s website if you want to, but the basic facts are that an outfit in Everett, Washington calling itself the Breast Cancer Prevention Fund has raised around $17 million over the last six years, of which they’ve spent $3.5 million on their stated services and another $3 million on overhead. The remaining $10,500,000 has all been paid to the telemarketing firm that does all of the fundraising for the non-profit – which would be bad enough, frankly, but the telemarketing company is owned by the same man who runs the non-profit group. Without auditing the telemarketing company’s books I can’t tell you for sure how much the owner is pocketing, but telemarketing is very high-margin business; all you need is a bunch of telephones and a group of people who are willing to make phone calls and read a script for minimum wage. But regardless of how much margin the telemarketing company is making, this so-called “charity” is utilizing just a hair over 20% of its donations to fulfill its actual mission – and that makes it a scam…

Now, as the linked article points out, there is no law against this type of operation in Washington State, and I’m not aware of any Federal law against running really crappy non-profit groups. Such a law would be impractical anyway, and I’d almost certainly have to turn in some of our former clients from the consulting company days if it did exist. But it’s unusual to find an operation where 80% of the donations are going to benefit the head of the agency, and it’s hard to see this as anything other than using people’s emotions about cancer research and screening to scam them out of money. It’s one of the lowest things you will ever see; calling such people scum is an insult to scum. What’s even worse, though, is that not only are these donations going into some crook’s home improvements instead of cancer research, but also this type of scam makes people less likely to donate to legitimate organizations like the ACS – or dozens of local agencies fighting the same fight…

Last month I suggested that it was self-serving of the atheists to pick a fight with the ACS just to get free publicity; those (obviously bogus) claims won’t really hurt the Society, but I resent anybody who draws support away from a worthwhile organization just to avoid having to pay their own PR costs. This week’s case illustrates how important accountability is in the non-profit sector. I’m not saying the ACS is staffed entirely by saints and angels (certainly they’ve never claimed any such thing), but they will make their utilization statistics available to you – and to anyone else who asks. So let me urge you once again to ask questions, look up the numbers, and make intelligent choices about who should get your money, and don’t let anyone else (even me) tell you where your donations should go…