It does?!? Really! Oh crap... </font>[/QUOTE][img]graemlins/1drinkspit.gif[/img] FUNNY!! [img]graemlins/1drinkspit.gif[/img]

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I'm not sure if you are aware, but for many of the Big Charity Organizations, less than 50% of every dollar donated is actually used for the purpose of charity.

For example, The United Way, less than 20 cents on the dollar is used for charity. The American Cancer Association, about 22 cents on the dollar goes to cancer research. The rest goes to pay exorbitant salaries for employees of the "Non-profit" organization.

I may be fuzzy on the United Way numbers, but not on ACA. My brother tried to start up his own cancer research charity when he learned of the pitiful amounts actually going to research.

You are -- they run at about 80% efficiency, which I'd argue is better than the Gum-Mint.

Maybe they should take over then, you know, run for elections.

The jobs where efficiency can be lost or gained are not elected jobs. And, we all know that politicians operate at or near 0% efficiency

You are -- they run at about 80% efficiency, which I'd argue is better than the Gum-Mint. </font>[/QUOTE]Well, that's the exact inverse of what I put forth. Like I said, I could be wrong on that one, since my source is a few years old and filtered through my swiss cheese memory. Still though, 80% effieciency is pretty decent (considdering the size of United Way). But what I had read long ago was nowhere near that good, and I swore off donating to them after that.

I hope they are though. While I don't think it's Gubmints job to redistribute wealth, I strongly believed in the need for charities.

as has somewhat been said, the governments efficiency in the welfare program doesnt even measure up to 20%. i agree, however, that an organization with an financial efficiency of anything lower than about 35-40% is probably not worth donating to.

Well, my numbers are also filtered through swiss cheese memory -- but those are the figures I was given when I ran the UW's fundraising campaign at my firm a few years back. 10 or 15 years ago, UW was busted for lots of waste and embezzlement at the high-management level. That tarnished their image, and still hangs on, though they've worked very hard to shake off the bad image from that occurence.