HawthorneVillager.com

I always thought that if you run a charity in the community, then the charity is run on a not-for-profit basis. I have been involved with many charities in the past and have had businesses donate hamburgers, napkins, water; all kinds of great stuff. All given to us for free and all money donated to a specific, advertised cause.

Lately, however, I have become skeptical of how some of these organizations, schools in particular, are advertising charity fund raisers. Newsletters are being sent home to buy "let's just say charm bracelets" to raise money for charity (newsletter doesn't even say what charity). Then I send the $20 to the school to buy 2 charm bracelets ($10 each). After, I find out the school has purchased the bracelets from a parent in the community who runs their own business, and I suspect (just suspect) that their company is making a profit. This has happened a few times with different companies.

Am I being petty or should I ask more questions about how these charities are being run? Should some companies have a right to profit from a charity? Are there laws governing the profitability of private companies involved with charities? Do charitable fundraisers have to publically disclose financial records?

I know there are some legal experts out there who are smarter than me.
...

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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.

When you are donating you always have the right to ask where your money is going and how much is going directly to the clients of the charity. Last week in the Star there was a prominent article on major charities who have huge administrative costs especially some sports ones.
http://www.thestar.com/news/investigati ... cle/800061

Many charities are just big moneymakers for people.

I've seen a few combination of things

1) a company supplies their product of service for absolute free (so the company is taking in a loss and making a huge donation

2) a company supplies their product at cost (depending on how the measure their costs, the supplier may just be donating their time to arrange the deal

3) a company supplies their product for a smaller then normal margin. So they are making profit, but maybe less profit then the other work they could be done at the same time. Can this be considered a donation or profit? up for debate

4) A company just doing what they do, selling their product/service at a normal price. Is something wrong with this? Also up for debate.


My personal belief is nothing is wrong with this (but you should do your own homework to find out if there is a conflict of interest .. ie: the parent is well connected to the leadership of the charity).

If there isn't a conflict of interest, then this is fine. Do employees who work for large charities (ie: world vision, red cross) deserve a pay cheque? Or should they be donating their full time to the charity.

I believe without the business side of charities, charities as a whole wouldn't have the ability to do what they do. This is because by nature we are selfish.

If you dig deeper into the publicly available numbers with regards to some registered charities, namely "Humane" charities, you will find funds being "directed" to other charities by their board of directors. Thing is, the re-route by the bod's, go to different charities "owned" by the same bod's. And many of the expenses go to bogus "office" supplies, company cars etc etc etc running in the 1000's of dollars. Lots of scamming going on, imo.

I think with schools raising money for a charity it's more of a fundraiser with the proceeds going to charity.

I used to volunteer at summer camp a few summers with a guy whose parents started a very popular charity. His folks always drove high end luxury cars to visit him and at 16 he had a nice car and rode around camp in a $3000 moutain bike.
His parents eventually 'sold' the rights to that charity and started a similar one. They were fairly well off.
He told me that charities are good business.

I'm confused....

the company supplying the product for the association isn't allowed to profit from supplying their product??

There are tonnes of LARGE companies supplying product suited for fundraisers...in fact there are companies that are created solely for this....

Chudliegh's does it...that cookie dough place does it (sorry can't remember the name), Scholastic books (your child's book order form in class) I'm trying to think of more.....there are tonnes!

The company supplying the product usually but not always provides a large discount to the organization as they are receiving a bulk/large order..they don't give the product out at cost....then the school/organization marks it up for their fundraising efforts.....and these prices are usually set by the original company as well.

I'm not sure why a company would just donate their product at cost for a fundraiser...I'm sure some do on one-off projects (raffles, donations, etc) but I'm sure that most don't even do it at cost...they turn a small profit...

Jessica

Well, I guess that is my point then. What would prevent me from creating my own company and then selling products or services through 'charitable' events? Just asking, "Don't you see something inherently wrong with this?" I have read others people's posts and ahve seen many reports in the newspaper that Charities are big money makers.

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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.

I see where you're coming from...I just needed some clarification. I agree that if the charity itself was making money...I'd have a huge issue with it. For instance if Milton Minor Hockey decided to sell Chudleigh's for instance, if the MMHA organization made a profit beyond their fundraising...I would expect it to go back into the organization. (It has to in this case )

But IMHO, it's OK for Chudleigh's to make a profit off of providing their product to the MMHA for use as a fundraiser. Many companies do this....

I see where you're coming from...it would be an amazing world we live in if companies constantly just donated their product for fundraising/charity, however a business can't operate like that...it's just not feasible for most.

Jessica