I may have no experience working with NGOs, but $11m in additional (to their existing running costs) seems a stretch. Punters like me naively gave thinking that my cash would be immediately injected in to the community who have been burdened by hardship. Then to find that charties are skimming excessively and warehousing the majority of the funds, makes us think again about spontaneous philanthropy.
The CEO declared openly that a large chunk of the funds would be “saved to spend towards disasters in the future“. To me, that’s a breach of trust (referring to the legal concept of trusts) and not too far away from obtaining financial advantage by deception.
The instagram mum who raised $30m proudly stated that 100% of all donations would be given to charties on the ground. Little did she and the donors know ....
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Yeah look I don't believe that is quite right. What they have said is that they know that whilst there is an immediate need, that need doesn't just go away,and continues on for years, and they are setting aside those funds to meet that need.
If that is the case I see nothing wrong there, they are raking in the money for this cause now, but what happens in three months time when the media has moved on and the disaster is no longer so in your face. Do you reckon they'll still be raking in donations for this cause, or will most people also have moved on? There are people that have simply lost everything, handing them a wad of cash now might well help them, but they won't be rebuilding their entire lives in the matter of weeks or months. They'll still need support.
Regards the costs of administration, again I'd say that @ around 11% sounds not that much to me, I'd hazard a guess that their general costs would be closer to 20%, so that would then represent a saving due to the economies of scale. There'd be a helluva a lot more work to be done in administering those funds responsibly and effectively, and I'd doubt very much that their existing infrastructure would be that poorly utilised that there'd be enough existing over capacity to big up the slack for what is such a major disaster at such a grand scale.
If they did, that in and of it's self would indicate to me they are running way too fat in the normal course of their business.
