Research costs money. Finding a cure for autoimmune diseases is near and dear to my heart, so last year’s Christmas bonus was used to make a small donation toward research (this is not a big deal; many people donate much larger amounts, but I figure that even small donations add up). Since making that donation, I’ve discovered that I should have done my homework first and found a different organization. Name recognition isn’t everything. How is the money used?
The donation form for this organization had a few extra questions:
- Do you want a thank-you gift acknowledging your donation? No. Just send me the tax receipt.
- Do you want to receive our print magazine? No. I’d rather hear about research projects, but that’s not what you publish.
- Do you want to receive e-mail updates? No. Your website is the least helpful of all the websites I’ve used for information. I’d rather get more in-depth information elsewhere.
Obviously I didn’t add any commentary, just indicated my preferences. The results were interesting, though.
- A gift arrived. I like it, and use it, and even posted a review. But I said I didn’t want it. Gift, postage, and paying for someone’s time to send the thing all took money that could have gone toward research.
- Magazines started arriving in my post office box, despite the fact that I’d declined the magazine option. On my tax receipt, the price of a subscription had been deducted from my donation amount.
- I keep getting e-mail updates. Even though I have jumped through the hoops to unsubscribe (many times), I still keep getting e-newsletters. What’s worse, I get a second copy of some of them with some strange name attached. No idea where they came up with the name, and the unsubscribe feature doesn’t work.
Before I make another donation, I will investigate the organization a little more carefully to see how funds are used. What type of research is being done? How much of the money goes toward autoimmune research? Are they looking for a cause-of/cure-for autoimmunity, or something else? How efficiently is overhead kept to a minimum? How much progress has been made in research funded by the organization?
Because I’m more interested in results than PR.
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Edit to add links to rating sites for charities. If you know of other good ones with free internet information, please add them in the comments.
