What do you hate about charities?

Simple question, about what you hate about charities? I'm trying to start one, and want to avoid the common pitfalls that other charities fall into. Background: I'm trying to start a conservation facility that caters to a specific sub-order of carnivores known as Caniformia (dog-like). They include anything from Wolves to Raccoon Dogs (Tanukis), to foxes, and other dog off-shoots like Coyotes and Mexican Red Wolf. Then when you start venturing into the Arctoidea infraorder you can get a little weird with bears, seals, red pandas, weasels, badgers, and raccoons.

Hopefully nothing is off limits, it is for me, but site moderators may say otherwise. Here let me start you off with a few:

• Trying to be an animal conservation and education charity, I hate charities that use distressing image to guilt you into donating
• while on the topic of donation, I hate aggressively demanding donations
• I hate groups that push their agenda on people, informing is one thing, but forcing is different
• Being autistic (high functioning) I decided to sign up for Asperger's (the type of a-typical autism I have, yay DSM-V) newsletters and it has become a nightmare. My inbox was getting spammed by call this person and that person in congress to get this mental disorder bill passed. Having Asperger's the last thing I want to do is to fumble my way through a verbal conversation since it's mostly a social disorder than it is a intelligence disorder. Anyways, what I'm getting at is aggressive newsletters and clogging your inbox with spam.

The charity will be called Raccoon City Conservation & Research Facility , yes after a video game that I've only played entry number 4 in and was only slightly interested in it. Though, I grew up loving video games and as time passed and FPS became the norm, and lack of money or powerful enough machine to run most games due to their high graphical demands, my love has nearly deadened. I'm getting a raccoon in May (grey male, that's going to be called Leon, again RE reference) to help prepare me for the reality of devoting my life to looking after wild dog-like animals. Any questions you may have I'll try to answer to the best of my ability or with what I'm willing to share, since some stuff has to be kept secret up to this point.

Everything you mentioned and ultimately charities which are set up to make money for the people who set them up.

I hate it when charities give my contact info to other parties, even other related charities. I also hate it when they spam me with solicitations after I have already donated. Chill out, and hit me up next year.

You need:

A web cam.

A tanuki named Mario.

A fox named McCloud.

Best of luck!

I know over here in the UK we have a problem with rather pushy charity workers who hang around city centres and go door to door, and are quite relentless in trying to get you to donate. Sure, you should advertise; but no means no and if wanted to donate I would have. So, I would make it a general rule to wait for people to engage with you, rather than the other way around.

There are certainly a whole lot of ineffective or downright dishonest charities. But I really don't have any problems with charities that do what they say they're doing.

There's stuff like Givewell.org that research how charities spend their money and ranks them in order of most efficient if you want to make sure your money ends up being used in the best and most effective manner possible. The Reality Check podcast have done a few episodes on the subject.

One "charity" drive that I was asked to participate in recently really made me see how sneaky businesses can be. I was with a relative over christmas buying random christmas junk at The Dollar Tree. When we went to check out the clerk asked if we'd like to make a donation to their toy drive. I asked how it worked and she took a cheap toy out of a box and said she'd add it to my order and then it'd go into their box to give away.

Now think about that. They want to add on another item at full price, make their profit off of it, and then have us give it away. They use the guise of charity to get people to buy another thing. If they really wanted to make a difference then they would sell the item at cost or split it with us. I was thinking of the back slapping going on at corporate when they came up with that idea.

Yeah, that sounds similar to canned food drives, where you're also supposed to pay for a single can of food and they put it aside in a box, despite the fact that good charity organizations can buy thousands of cans in bulk for a fraction of the price, so the dollar or two you spend on that single can could've been used for many times that if you had just gotten that dollar to an actual charity organization instead.

- spending the donations on inflated salaries for the people running it.

- spamming my email with updates

If you walked up to someone on the street and said "I'm raising money for _______ (cause)" and the person knows what you're talking about; YOU DON'T NEED MONEY TO RAISE AWARENESS. Everyone in the Western world is aware of what breast cancer is, for example. People expect their money is being spent on either research or treatment for the underprivileged when it ends up spent on even bigger marketing campaigns to fleece even more dollars.

If the continued existence of the problem ensures the CEO can keep up a six figure salary, what incentive does the CEO have to actually solving the problem? In fact, the CEO is incentivized to misrepresent the problem as exacerbating year after year.

(That those who sell treatments have an incentive to bury cures, and those who sell cures have an incentive to bury prevention, and those who sell prevention have an incentive to bury both is one of the weird and difficult medical/business ethics dillemmas.)

I would need to know what my money would be spent on, and I would respect and greatly prefer the charity that emphasizes their efficiency and how much of each dollar results in clear, tangible benefits. You buy a great deal of credibility with me if you put that up on Front street.

Many major charities (even the ones that pull in millions in fundraising/donations per year) have almost all of their funds eaten up by "administrative costs" and almost none actually reaching "the cause". Don't do that. By all means, people should aim to be able to make a living doing their charitable deeds; but many organizations just fill their pockets with the guise of money going to an actual cause and that's pretty wretched.

Anyway, soap box aside.... most of what others and you have brought up about fundraising practices is most top-of-mind of what irks a lot of people about charities. Be good to the people donating to you - don't sell their info, don't spam them, don't inundate them with photos of suffering animals.

Also, do a lot of research on what you are about to partake. Watch out for some pitfalls such as focusing on such a niche cause that it is hard to find funding/donations, and be aware of what an undertaking it is to set up an actual animal shelter operation (staffing, leasing/buying a space, unavoidable overhead costs, municipal/regional regulations, permits, etc, etc).

I wish you the best of luck.

Transparency, I usually only help charities locally or don't because I have no confirmation of where my money is going. I would much rather give money to a homeless person who is probably going to buy booze with it than having even a small probability of my money going to some overpaid fatcat who thinks he is saving the world.

Basically, all the shit Komen pulls. That organization has completely lost their way. Let's start with their CEO making well over half a million per year, which is fucking insane for a "non-profit charity". And donations supposedly "for the cure" are widely misappropriated. When charitable donations intended to fight cancer get funneled to political causes or organizations like Planned Parenthood, something's awry. I don't even really have a problem with PP, but I have a MAJOR problem with claims that donated funds will be used for one thing and then are used as they see fit instead. Furthermore, the pinkwashing bullshit does more for apparel companies and the like than it does for cancer. Ultimately, Komen uses less than 1/4 of their funding on actual cancer research, which is essentially downright theft in my book given that they're telling people the money is "for the cure". Oh, but they need to raise "awareness" with a whole month of pink shit. No, you fucking don't. At this point, they're actually hindering other charities. And I'm not just talking about their pink garbage effectively drowning out other charities, they literally threaten/sue other charities if they dare use "for the cure" in their own campaigns. That suing fellow charities somehow wasn't a "come to Jesus" moment for them is mind-boggling, but that's Komen for you. They don't care about anything but furthering Komen. Fuck that.

</rant>

(P.S. If you actually care about making a difference instead of wearing some bullshit t-shirt or ribbon that does virtually nothing, donate to the AACR. The AACR is composed of actual healthcare professionals and scientists who use funding as it should be used to research/fight all cancers.)

I don't think about what I don't like, I just give to causes I do like.

• I give to Planned Parenthood because...planning is better than not planning.
• I give to the American Heart Assoc because one day...."poof" my heart will stop, so that is preventive.
• I give to Emily's List because fuck conservative Christians who want to run politics.
• I give a lot to GofundMe requests from people who have gotten in serious accidents or need help after a fire or robbery.
• I give to cats. If you have a sick cat, hit me up. Well, unless your cat is Internet Famous, in which case just make a video.
• There are a shocking amount of pole dancers who need money...I always give them some money.
• I have a few Patreons - Jim Sterling, Ackward Kids, LauraKBuzz, PlayerOnePodcast, AwesomeSauce Network.

Nothing would ever get done, you can ask without being pushy. That seems a better option.

Charities that make their issue into a Great Moral Cause. I'm fine giving money, but I can do without the lecture. For me, there is generally an inverse relationship between my willingness to donate and the evangelism of the people asking for my money.

I guess the best example I can give is the difference between the ASCPA and PETA. Both want animals treated humanely, but whereas the ASCPA is usually pretty innocuous and tend to stick to things like flyers. PETA turns the issue into a borderline religious movement which wastes time and money on a bunch of dumb publicity stunts and shrill rhetoric. If you don't think exactly like they do, you may as well be a terrorist.

I signed up for a couple (like literally 2) organizations meant to enact "change" in politics, and I'm still struggling to this day to block all their "we have a new issue to fight for! Answer the call!" emails. I know you mentioned it already, but yeah, keep those emails to an absolute minimum. Cannot be reiterated enough.

The part where they ask for my money.

Pfff.. jerks.

I hate meta-charities like that United Way that skim off the top of real charities.

I like calendars and stickers.

I don't mind occasional junk mail.

Some charities will send you an annual membership notice like 3 times a year. They don't care if you're paid up until 2040. That seems rude.

I don't like being called by someone who's barely aware of what your charity even does. If you're going to call me for money I might want to have a chat.

Everything you said already. Usually those kinds of things tell me what they're really after (which is your time and money).

I think a charity should only focus on what they are doing to fix something and have substantial goals that are well understood for what they will do with the money you give- of course they should also follow through with it.

There shouldn't be any pressure to give.

A lot of people already said it, but charities that only want your money and do illegal things with it are the worst and probably the reason why most people I know don't give to a charity. It's still a stigma and probably still very true. It will probably always hinder a certain percentage of people from giving money (I usually try to research places before giving money myself, but it's not easy. Any charge of indecency and I just don't give to that charity.)

This might be strange advise... but maybe don't make a charity? Because it sounds like you don't really want to. Charities strike me as a "ends justifies the means" kind of endeavor. You say you don't want to guilt people or bug them for donations. My understanding is that you might find that those are very effective strategies and holding yourself back might be setting up for failure.

Try watching this

You might walking away thinking this is good advice. Or you might walk away thinking this guy is a scum bag. I dunno... it's a hard thing to do. Proceed with caution.

1. After I gave, don't contact me within the next couple of weeks asking for more. This happens to me A LOT. (Easy mark?)

2. Do not sign me up for some kind of annual membership. I may give to you again next year, but do not pretend I am in some way obligated because I gave last year. I am not joining your club and I do not want your club card in my wallet.

Those mother fucking vultures that hang around in public places stopping your on your way to where ever you are going trying to get you to sign up.