“Charity does not decrease wealth” – Unknown
A lot of money goes into charities,
In fact, the total amount of money donated to global and local charities per year is greater than the combined annual GDP of Ukraine, Greece and Pakistan. The amount is slightly higher than the GDP of United Arab Emirates.
What’s crazy about this insane amount of cash is that it only accounts for the money given by people living in America!
Key terms, I should clarify:
Global charity: A charity which has influence on multiple countries and usually receives 1+ million in donations.
Local charity: A charity which is based in your country/neighbourhood.
The build-up is killing me! How much is being spent on charities per year?
470 billion dollars. (Chartitynavigator.com)
Just the casual price of your morning coffee… J
Though, keep in mind that this is only accounting for the money donated to global and local charities from America. I have this nasty feeling that the worldwide amount is 15 digits long.
The amount donated is rising at a very decent speed of 3-5% per year. Interestingly, less people (Americans) are donating, yet the figure is predicted to continue rising. When it comes to who donates the money, more individuals (80% of total amount) are donating to charities in contrast to companies (20%). Out of the individuals who donate to charities, the most amount of cash is donated by **surprise** the top 1% **gasps**. If you want to read an interesting article about how becoming the top 1% is by luck, click here.
Photo by Kat Yukawa on Unsplash
So, the biggest question that comes into our mind is;
When you sign up to the monthly donation scheme with your local charity, where does all the bucks go?
Empty void,
No jokes, even some global charities choke up big time when it comes to spending the money for an actual cause. A great example is Derbyshire charity (a multi-million breast cancer helping charity) which spent only 3 cents for each dollar donated.
A third-party research organization by channel4 found that local charities spend 60 cents of every dollar donated. The rest was spent on so called “governance”. The biggest problem is that many charities do not publicly feel free to share their methods of “governance”.
Also, according to channel4, the most shocking fact to this is that an average charity organization CEO earns $255,000 dollars per year! At the same time most charities have 92-94% of their workers as volunteers.
And I thought footballers earnt too much,
Note: Global charities also spent the same amount on the actual deed – 60 cents per dollar donated.
Should you stop organizing fund raising events for your lovely local charity
Short answer: No
People who are against the idea of charities fail to recognize the fact that many charities spent lots of money in fundraising and promoting their brand. Even though this will be expensive in the short term, it will put the charity into a very effective catch 22: Promote with money, gain popularity, earn more money.
In general, local charities are nicer to donate as they work in small scale and sometimes the results are easier to see (as the change might occur in your neighbourhood). However, global charities can help in a much larger scale and can help much more people.
At the end of the day, I still strongly believe that one should always check thoroughly the procedures of your charity and find out how the money is being spent. Also, just because one charity turns out rotten does not mean ALL charities are rotten. There should never be a reason for you to not to donate to charities. On that note, I will leave with you the following thought to ponder.
“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give” – Winston Churchill