It’s a service that fulfils a critical need but is run on a shoestring budget, with very little of the money spent on anything but critical necessities. Although Amazon Smile wasn’t a huge source of income for my branch, it will leave a hole that will have to be filled.
I can’t say I disagree that there aren’t plenty of mega-charities that spent too much on admin and fundraising, but I also know firsthand there are plenty out there deserving of every penny coming their way.
[1] https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/our-organisation...
Just because the charity sausage gets made in ways that isn't always appealing doesn't mean there aren't charities that have impact.
You can be involved in the community and get to know local organizations and how they run, then give to them with more certainty.
In our case, the bulk of our charitable donations goes to organizations we know first hand, which are mainly local. Eg: helping the local preschool, our houses of worship, etc. The most 'remote' org we give to is the Israeli ambulance corps, but we still "know" them in the sense that my wife had been a volunteer EMT there a long time ago.
Point being that - there's some positive synergy between your physical community involvement and your "insight" into how organizations in your community function, and a sense of how the money is spent.
The fact that one of these orgs got something like $400 via Amazon Smile from us last year is nice although let's be real - nobody is going to stop using Amazon because of this change.
There are good charities that do spend 70-99% of their revenues on their cause. And there are high-profile charities that don't.
If you’re a charity that say collects for homeless people, even if the charity says they spend 90% on the cause, the actual benefits to the homeless people is actually close to maybe 30-50%. They creatively spend money “for the cause” like printing pamphlets or spending on a fundraising event or hiring a “consultant” to strategize on how to fix homelessness or plenty of others.
I knew before posting that my comment was going to be downvoted. But it was made from a place of hurt after being involved in multiple charities big and small. There are genuine grassroots community based charities that work well. But they are few. Most well run charities spend at best 60% of the money wisely.
Printing and distributing pamphlets that educate those with means of influence to make things better does support the cause. Fundraising expenses are overhead and reported as such. Hiring a consultant to help an organization carry out its mission also supports the cause. Just because the organization isn't giving 100% of its receipts into the hands of the homeless directly doesn't mean they aren't helping the homeless.
That said, there are probably plenty of organizations with suspicious claims. Take charity: water's 100% claim. They like to use it to appear like they have no overhead, but it's just wordsmithing. It's also a rather egregious example of how being to focused on eliminating overhead can be harmful.
https://thefundraisingauthority.com/fundraising-ideas/charit...
The nice thing about AmazonSmile is that you could pick from the small ones you know well and trust.
Now, Amazon will donate to the biggest ones without our choice, which is definitely worse.
Worse, Amazon has set up their own charities to donate to.
do you have evidence of this assertion?