By Dessa Bayrock (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: July 3, 2013
Last year I donated to the SPCA.
It wasn’t a large amount—maybe $5—and definitely not enough to merit a tax receipt, but the volunteer collecting donations wrote down my name and thanked me profusely.
That, I thought, was that.
I was completely surprised to receive a letter from the SPCA three weeks later.
Much to my chagrin, they had not only sent me a thank-you card but a set of personalized address labels and a pad of notepaper reading “From the Desk of Dossa Bayrock” along the bottom.
They hadn’t even spelled my name correctly.
Not only was I stuck with notepaper I hadn’t asked for and couldn’t use, I was left with a sinking feeling as I considered what, exactly, my money had gone towards.
It was just pocket change to me, but I saw other names on the donation form with contributions of $20, $50. Was this money just paying for postage of a thank you note and stationary headed for the recycling bin?
This is something I struggle with every time there’s a natural disaster. News coverage is punctuated with instructions of how to donate and what charity to donate to. Sometimes these charities of choice form in response to a specific disaster and that disaster only, but often the names are familiar ones: the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, United Way. You don’t even have to get off the couch to donate, the newscaster will explain. Just text a certain word to a certain number and we’ll add it to your bill.
Considering how easy the process has become, how many people research charities before donating, let alone follow up on that donation?
It makes sense that not every penny is going directly towards the cause; organizations have to pay administrative costs somehow, including renting offices and keeping those offices running smoothly. Anywhere from 10-30 cents per dollar go towards paying administrative costs. But these organizations have to buy coffee. They have to buy toilet paper. I don’t begrudge that.
What does bother me is finding a report from the Ontario Ministry of Finance, which records the names and salaries of Red Cross’s 26 high-ranking employees.
All of them make over $100,000 a year. The CEO, Conrad Sauvé, makes close to $300,000 a year.
Maybe it’s naïve to think charities should operate any differently than a corporation or big business. Still, in the back of my head I assumed the people behind charities do the work because they love it, not because of the massive paycheque. Charities often argue that they need competitive salaries to draw high-calibre workers to the organization, but shouldn’t passion do that?
Sending off a donation is a quick and painless way to alleviate the horror and sympathy viewers feel as they watch disasters unfold through newsreels and live updates. In lives busier than ever, sometimes it’s the only commitment that fits into a schedule.
I know I’m not the only one disgruntled by the use of donated funds, but it’s a truth forgotten time and time again as each news piece about flooding or other natural disasters comes around.
Given all the information that charities are bound to release to the public—and how easily that information is available online—maybe it’s something we should be talking more about.
