Sunday, December 16, 2007
Editorial: Charitable mis-giving
Veterans charities that use donations to pay six-figure salaries don't deserve the public's generosity.
From the RoundTable blog
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Americans have a soft spot for charitable causes. They give to hurricane relief funds and victims of wildfires or to whatever cause du jour tugs hardest at their hearts.
Like the war wounded.
Americans have given nearly $500 million to military charities they thought help wounded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But surprisingly little of that money actually reaches veterans, the American Institute of Philanthropy says. Money instead is spent on slick ad campaigns, trinkets and outrageously inflated salaries for charity leaders.
Whenever there is disaster or tragedy, opportunists lurk ready to take advantage of generosity for their own greedy purpose rather than to carry out the good that donors intended for their dollars.
They give giving a bad name.
How bad? The philanthropy institute, a nonprofit charity watchdog group, gave 20 of 28 military charities D's or F's in how they manage contributions.
One organization passed along a scant 1 cent of every dollar raised to veterans, an institute report says. The Washington Post, which conducted an analysis of tax filings, reported that Help Hospitalized Veterans paid its founder and his wife a combined $540,000 in salary and benefits last year.
Twelve of the 28 charities received failing grades from the institute. The 12 received a combined $266 million in donations in the past fiscal year, The Post said.
One was the Freedom Alliance, an organization founded by Oliver North and heavily promoted by syndicated talk show host Sean Hannity.
Hannity has sponsored events he calls Freedom Concerts for several years to raise money for the alliance's scholarship fund for children of slain servicemen and women.
Tickets prices at a July 26 concert sold for $38 to $78. But only $4 of every ticket purchased went to the alliance, less than what went to parking and facility fees.
Members of Congress are outraged that so little of the donations purported to benefit veterans is reaching them. The public should be too.
Such flagrant exploitation taints the legitimate good that many veterans charities do. Americans certainly shouldn't stop giving; the need is still great.
But giving ought to be done with great care and scrutiny. Military charities whose staffs line their pockets with money solicited to help wounded veterans don't deserve the generosity of Americans who care enough for troops to open their hearts, and wallets.
