Bono's Foundation under fire.

[Russ_Byth]

Bono's ONE foundation under fire for giving little over 1% of funds to charity
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:48 PM on 23rd September 2010

Bono's anti-poverty foundation ONE is under pressure to explain its finances after it was revealed that only a small percentage of money it raises reaches the needy.
The non-profit organisation set up by the U2 frontman received almost £9.6million in donations in 2008 but handed out only £118,000 to good causes (1.2 per cent).

The figures published by the New York Post also show that £5.1million went towards paying salaries.
While the organisation's gameplan has never been direct handouts on the ground, many who admire the Irish rock legend may be surprised by the figures.

Bono was playing Brussels last night with U2 as the world's leaders - so many of whom he speaks to directly - were meeting at the UN assembly in New York to assess the progress, or lack of, in reaching the Millennium goals they set.

The Post revealed it had received a number of gifts from ONE in the run-up to the event, such as leather notebooks, bags of coffee and water bottles.
In the UK, the organisation has laid on a series of high-profile, celebrity-supported events since it launched in 2002 to fight poverty in Africa and Aids worldwide.
In 2009, the group campaigned to have enshrined in British law a commitment to development assistance abroad.

ONE spokesman Oliver Buston has now defended the way the organisation is run, insisting the money is used for promoting its campaign and raising awareness rather than being given straight to those who need help.
He said: 'We don't provide programmes on the ground. We're an advocacy and campaigning organisation.'

Another spokesman in New York today dismissed the notion of lavish salaries being paid to its 120 members of staff and said the organisation was highly efficient in its raising of awareness.

ONE said it took no money from the public and that most of its funding came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... arity.html

[yathink]

Money is a good servant but a bad master.
Aristodemus

[slowhand]

Be interesting to know/hear how Mr. & Mrs. Gates feel about this revelation. Who'd a thunk the organization's name ONE stood mainly for the percentage of money donated that made its way to people the donors wanted to help.

[Buckley]

Well, even if the public doesn't ever give directly to that particular foundation, it still leaves people mistrusting of charitable organizations in general. I mean, even if I give $20 to a charity, I kind of want all $20 to go to whoever I'm donating to. If 99% of the money is just going to paying the salaries of people who sit on a board of directors and waste time deciding who it should go to (isn't that generally spelled out in the mission statement of the charity?), then why would I donate?

[Howaboutthat]

So here's what you do. Always ask for documentation on a breakdown of where donations go. All organizations have overhead. However, Buckley, I can assure you that 99 percent of donations to me, will stay with me!

Never donate when you feel you're being pressured.

[Buckley]

So here's what you do. Always ask for documentation on a breakdown of where donations go. All organizations have overhead. However, Buckley, I can assure you that 99 percent of donations to me, will stay with me!

Never donate when you feel you're being pressured.

Oh I definitely understand that charities have overhead. In high school, I used to give a friend of mine shit because he was charging something like $50 per Word document he converted to HTML for the Heart and Stroke Foundation (keep in mind this was back in 1997, but Frontpage still existed so it was still only a 30 second copy/paste process, and since the general population was still lacking basic computer knowledge you could get away with that easily). We weren't friends for long when I told people he was defrauding a charitable organization. But right there, If someone donated $25, that means they were paying for this asshole to hit Ctrl+C. Another $25 gets you the Ctrl+V.

That said, I'll keep in mind the "Howaboutthat Foundation to De-thirsty the Coffee-less" gives nearly all of its donations to the main cause.

[Karen]

Maybe Mr Bono should stick to making music rather than messing around with his little pet projects.

Then again, after the last U2 effort at making music, maybe he should just retire.

As for charities, DON'T ever donate to these boiler room operators who call on behalf of legitimate charities and foundations. The amount they scalp off the top
is absolutely ridiculous. There was some real horror stories on the TV news a few weeks ago.

If you're going to give, give to local schools directly, the United Gospel Mission, your local food bank or even the Orphan's Fund (or anyplace else that guarantees
no overhead or percentage taken off for administration fees).

[jon]

One of the finest approaches I've ever seen to running a charity was quite popular here in Edmonton about 10 years ago: get sponsors to cover ALL the admin costs. Then regular donors see 100% of their money going to where it should.

Realistically, many large registered non-profits can't do that. General rule of thumb is anything below 15% admin costs is a pretty well run charity. Just so long as "admin costs" really includes everything that isn't going to the cause itself.

[jon]

Organizers say they must sell at least 62 per cent to break even, and more if they hope to provide proceeds to three children’s groups, including Big Brothers Big Sisters of Edmonton.

That quote is from this article about Alberta's "4 Kids Provincial Lottery":
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Alb ... story.html

If I'm reading that quote ("more if they hope to provide proceeds to three children’s groups") correctly, the guys who run this charity take (all?) their profits first, before a penny makes it to any of the charities the lottery is supposed to represent. Yeah, they deserve something for taking the risk of being the ones who lose money if enough tickets are not sold, but the optics of this are all wrong!