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Jumping Frog wrote:

C-dub wrote:I guess I could give them a little leeway on the amount spent on fundraising depending on how much they do raise. Spending more on fundraising to gain more donations isn't as bad as spending $320k/year to the CEO in my opinion.

As Lee Corso would say, "Not so fast my friend!"

I did some management consulting work for a group of companies under common ownership (3 guys). There was a mail-processing company that opened the return mail and processed the cash/checks and surveys. There was a direct mail firm that wrote all the direct mail pieces, bought the direct mail lists, sent the mailing, etc.. There were about a dozen different charities that were the grist for the mill.

Those charities would report their fundraising expenses. Their fundraising services were purchased from the mail-processing company and the direct mail firm. The 3 owners took salaries from the two service firms as well as owning all the profit that was moved to those two firm. The charities reported very low salaries for the executives but high fundraising costs.

It was just a variation on finding the Queen of Hearts in a Three-card Monte game.

The only measurement that matters to me in a charity is the percent of giving that ends up actually providing services to the correct beneficiaries.