In a major investigation conducted by Bloomberg Markets Magazine, senior reporter David Evans found that the American Cancer Society, among other major charities in the United States, have signed suspicious contracts with telemarketers to raise money.
The American Cancer Society is the largest health charity in the country and has enlisted InfoCision Management Corp. to raise millions of dollars over the past decade. In 2010, InfoCision raised $5.3 million through hundreds of thousands of volunteers. But according to the American Cancer Society's filings with the Internal Revenue Service, zero percent of those donations went into funding cancer research or helping patients.
Perhaps even more egregious, Evans found that some major charities encourage telephone solicitors to lie and say that a majority of the money raised through donations will be used for charitable purposes.
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Comments [6]
The reporter/ing was not all that inspiring. I was waiting to here what the charity actually had in mind. Maybe the donations came with contact information that was to be used for follow up campaigns, over the next three years, from efforts other then telemarketing. Social media marketing seems more important than old telemarketing, these days. The reporter was just creating and stirring in his own drama. ... ain't it awful ...
What is a reasonable percentage for the charity to get when hiring others to do the work for prompting previous contributors or finding new donors?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but when these charities hire these telecommunications companies to collect contributions on their behalf they are not asking contributors to make checks payable to their own companies such as Infocision. No they are making the contribution directly to the charity. Infocision was only the middle man hired to do a job. What the charity did with the money Infocision collected, and reported it collected mind you, is on the charity. The Infocision employees clearly did their jobs.
This was clearly Poor reporting. Please Do some better homework. Not all telemarketers out there are truthful I'll give you that. But Infocision is a good company with good conservative morals and a lot of hard working decent employees who can proudly do their job during the day and sleep peacefully at night knowing they did. How many people out there can truly say that about their job or places of employment?
Fraud. Plain and simple. As far as I'm concerned, when conduct like this arrises from non-profit organisations, it is to the detriment of the all charities, especially those that are in desperate need of donations and funding. I wouldn't be apposed to fraud charges being filed against these organisations based on these new revelations.
Charities are rated -- very reliably -- on
www.charitynavigator.com
Thank you for spreading the word on this scandal. (and thanks to the author for the research and for speaking out) Whenever there are proprietary aspects to fund raising--hold on to your wallet.
Of course, the Susan B Komen scandal was a significant hint as to potential abuses.
Caveat emptor
Go down to your local charities, look the administrator in the eye--and get a tour. Liars and CROOKS.
Oh great... for years I just hang up on anyone soliciting for charities and just felt it was the New York thing to do...it is probably someone just trying to rip me off... but I felt bad about it... What if it is legitimate...
Now, to find out that it was probably a scam doesn't make me feel better at all... I mean I'm happy I didn't contribute to someone where 85 percent of my donation would go to the telemarketers but I feel bad to have been proven right... One day I want to be proven wrong about when people are portraying themselves as volunteers for a good cause.
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