Don't Choose a Charity Based on Administration Costs

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Comments

[Sean]

Fantastic article on this here (from February 2010):
http://www.endeavourvolunteer.ca/wp/conversation-starter/why-donations-must-go-towards-administrative-costs/

From the article,
"In the end, the final decision on whether or not to donate to an NPO returns to the question of trust. Do we trust the managers and executive directors of these organizations to best allocate our donations to deliver a vital service or program that we value as Canadians?

The next time we donate, let’s take a quick moment to appreciate the fact that these administrative costs exist, which enables trained staff to be quickly deployed to disaster zones, after school programs to be delivered to at-risk youths, or public advocacy which ultimately is trying to save our environment."

[Saundra]

The BBB standards have some strong points, and it's one of the standards I referenced in creating The Charity Rater. For anyone interested in reading them they're at http://www.bbb.org/us/Charity-Standards/
The BBB focuses on three areas, the board makeup and governing rules, financials, and fundraising. I felt that while these were good to consider - it still has a focus on the amount spent on administration costs and doesn't include other issues which I believe are important such as needs assessments.

[CompanyStarter]

This is a really helpful and important post. Thank you for contributing it. We will certainly take your recommendations into account.

One thing I've been happy with is using the BBB guidelines to evaluate charities. It seems to be something of a gold standard (not the only standard at all of course). What do you think about that?