Friday, March 23, 2012

SmileTrain - a protection racket

For literally years now, I've been getting mailings about every 2 weeks from SmileTrain, a charity that helps children born with a cleft lip or palate get the repair surgery they need to lead relatively normal lives. A worthy cause, yes? I suppose - but their fundraising strategy amounts to a protection racket. I quote:

"Make one gift now and we'll never ask for another donation again."

 Right. According to a report by CharityWatch, this is a lie. Further, in 2009 SmileTrain had an overhead rate of about 30%, while claiming that "100% of your donation goes to program - 0% goes to overhead." Part of that overhead was the $678,058 that President and Co-Founder Brian Mullaney received in compensation.

 I hate to see scumbags making money off unfortunate children.

No comments:

Post a Comment