This post is about looking “under the covers” at charities you donate to. Is knowing the brand name enough? No. That didn’t work for people who donated to United Way in the early 1990s, nor did it work for the people who donated to create Afghan schools after reading the “Three Cups of Tea” book. Can “influencers” alone make a charity a brand that a donor will just throw money at, without looking at what the charity really does?
I wish that wasn’t the case, but more and more, it feels like it is. Feeling charitable enough to volunteer or donate to a cause, only to find out that the money isn’t going where it says it is, or that the execs in the non-profit are using the money raised for personal reasons, or that the organization is so badly run that it’s actually causing — not eradicating — problems for people, is bad all around. It’s hard enough to convince a donor to donate, but then having that donor find out that they were duped is likely to make that donor stop donating altogether. The Attorney General of California, Xavier Becerra, is so concerned about this problem that he has just created a set of guidelines — a warning, it seems — for donors to “always do their research before making a donation of any kind.”
So it’s everyone’s responsibility to ensure that honesty prevails in non-profits. Obviously, we hope that staff and company leaders are honest. But we must go beyond that wishful thinking. We need to make sure that board members actually say something if something feels awry. (Yes, that might make the board member a pariah, but at least they can sleep at night knowing they did the right thing — and, oh by the way, it’s their fiduciary responsibility as a board member.) We also need to make sure that donors realize that their donation to a cause is a form of investment — and should be treated as such. You wouldn’t buy stock or real estate or a bond on brand alone, would you?
Here’s an example that I recently encountered. Like most people I know, I grew up with a set of values that included helping those in need. My faith requires it and my soul requires it. Empathy is an important trait that should be encouraged and nurtured, and people who lack empathy are people I don’t want to be around.
As part of this “moral code” that includes helping those in need, I learned at a young age that I (and everyone, really) should be open to joining in when a very simple opportunity to help others is offered. As a kid, I joined Girl Scouts, did “get out the vote” canvassing, collected library books for CARE, and participated in penny drives and the like. Easy, right? Right.
So as an adult, I learned that there were also myriad “easy ways to help” that I could do – even without financial resources. Collect cans of food and socks for kids at neighbor schools! Donate discarded clothes to Goodwill or needy college students! Help make sandwiches for AIDS patients! Cut off your long hair and give it to Locks of Love to give wigs to kids with cancer! Uh, not so much for that last one. Read below.
Despite the brand that almost everyone knows, Locks of Love may not be doing as much good as we want to think, and the “no brainer” aspect of giving your long-grown hair to them might not be such a good idea. Per an article appearing in Forbes and ABC news online in 2013, Locks of Love in 2011 received 104,000 hair donations (theoretically all in the little bundles that meet all their criteria), and they produced – wait for it – 317 wigs. Compare that to the 75,000 hair donations (based on average donations over years 2006-2014) received by the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program, which resulted in the creation and distribution of over 4200 wigs (annually on average during the same period). You read that correctly – less hair donated, but over 13x more wigs distributed. How can this be? Is it because Pantene had more financial resources to operate the program than Locks for Love had, or is it because – maybe – the Locks for Love program didn’t have their act together so much?
Evidently Locks for Love, with an annual budget of about $1MM, (mostly from individual donations), says that they don’t track the incoming hair at all, and they have no idea what their ratios are of incoming hair to wigs to sales of hair to others. Really? They’ve operated this way since 1997, it seems. Oh, and evidently they don’t acknowledge the receipt of the hair, either (wouldn’t a thank you note be nice?).
In fact, their financial recordkeeping – despite their ratings on Charity Navigator and Guidestar – seems to be very weak and problematic. Marc Owens, the former director of the tax-exempt division of the IRS, when asked about Locks for Love’s financials (for KPIX 5), stated, "there are just so many omissions, it's hard to say for certain that any of the data on the return is accurate.” Nice. Let’s give some money – and our hair -- to that organization.
Solutions for a situation such as this? With a handful of other “wigs for people with hair loss” non-profits in the US today, why not merge several of them into one of the better-run organizations? Or, if the Locks for Love brand isn’t completely sullied in consumers’ (and donors’) minds, use that brand, but merge with the other (lesser-known) brands and bring in a couple of good financial people. If the new company wants to continue receiving donations, maybe start acknowledging receipt of hair (which is a pretty personal thing to donate).
You may say that the other organizations give to different segments of the medical hair-loss/wig donation communities, but it really doesn’t matter. All the segments can be served – and served much, much better – by a roll-up of the various organizations in this area.
It might be interesting to note, though, that the Pantene program closed recently. Why? First, they evidently have enough hair on hand for four (4!) years of wig making, and second, they recognize that synthetic hair is now of a high enough quality to be perfectly acceptable for the women with hair loss (so no hair donations necessary).
So two messages here:
1) The next time you want to do an easy donation, donating your hair might not be a good first choice.
2) Take the time to vet organizations that you are thinking of donating to. Whether it’s a call to someone on the board, a list of very specific questions asked of someone from the organization, or even a quick google search of sources you trust, doing some due diligence is critical. If the organizations know that you’re not donating just because you know the brand name, maybe they’ll be more careful (and ethical) about how they do their business.
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- Lisa