As you may know, there is a lot of controversy surrounding corporate philanthropy and non-profit organizations in today’s economy. Several organizations and/or individuals are being accused or actually convicted of embezzlement, money laundering, etc. by taking money from non-profit organizations and putting them into personal funds or hiding money from illegal activities in non-profit funds. Do you think this negative attention will change the way corporations invest in non-profit organizations in the future? If so, how? If not, why not?
Charity Navigator is one of the best charity watchdog organizations out there and a lot of people and organizations rely on its work to guide them as they decide where to make donations. Please go to their website (Charity NavigatorLinks to an external site.) and look up the following three charities which by their names tell us that they do the same kind of work. You may have to register to get deeper into the site but its free. Take a look first at how many stars they rated each one of these then dig a little more to see some key indicators such as what percentage of donations goes directly to program operations.
- Wishing Well Foundation USA
- Kids Wish Network
- Make-A-Wish America
State a few facts that you noticed when you looked these up and mention any major similarities and any major differences.
Then look up one non-profit that you are familiar with, where you have either volunteered your time or made a financial donation (e.g. Feeding South Florida, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, March of Dimes, etc.).
(I volunteered at the Food Rescue in Little Haiti, Florida)
I am looking for you to state your opinion; what do you conclude from this bit of research you just did?
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