How charity organisations may win back potential donors...

Categories: Singapore

Tonight's charity show for the Singapore Cancer Society is the first charity drive show to be shown on national TV after the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) saga. Every one will be interested to see whether the NKF fiasco has any effect on tonight's charity drive. Therefore I think it will be timely for us to reflect what charity organisations perhaps should address to gain back the confidence of the donating public.

Maybe the charity organisation which canvas for funds should publish in the newspaper about financial reports before their drive. This is especially so for those that hope to canvas for donations more than say S$1 million. This should be done as per any public listed company. This way potential donors will have a chance to gauge how much is spent and how the money was spent. This is important because unlike buying a product where the buyers can decide whether to patronise again by the product sold, charity organisations generally gain their donations based on goodwill. And how else can goodwill be earned?

Next the organisation's budget should be clearly projected as such and such amount and how it will be spent if possible. Budget in running the organisation, I feel, should not be based on the amount of donation gathered. This is because in a for profit company, any redundant income after deduction of expenses will be considered as profit and this is taxable. However in a charity organisation, there is no such thing as profit. Moreover the money gathered is tax-exempt. If there is not fixed budget, what is there to prevent the organisation for spending unnecessarily? Therefore I was shocked to see that the National Council of Social Service's budget is based on the amount of donation gathered.

It is never wrong to pay good salary to the CEO etc even if he is running a charity organisation. This is because if he can canvas and raise huge amount of donations, then I think he deserved the money. But given 'unrealistic' bonus is another matter. This is a gray area and if bonuses were to be given out, then I think they should be based on the government guidelines and not on the 'profit' from the donation drive. This brings back my previous point, if there is no fixed budget, extra money will usually be siphoned to somebody or somewhere which may be questionable as far as a charity organisation is concerned.

Only time will tell how tonight's charity drive will fare. I only hope that people will still donate generously and the money obtained will go to the people that needed them most. Maybe this will bring back faith in potential donors