Exploiting Charity Causes For Profit!

[JaniG]

Hey Warriors Jani G here...

Ok, i have seen different Gurus who have said that they are going to give x amount of dollars to a particular charity which the launch of x product...

But i recently saw a website, a friend of mine..

His website is basically talking about how they are going to sell
1 million t-shirts ,to help out a certain charity.

Their website is specifically to make money for a certain charity...

However, i found out that only 30% is actually going to charity, and the rest, profit for himself.

My question is:

Do you think this is un-ethical?, to oly give away 30% profit

or do you think this is a good strategy to make huge profit by exploiting the 'charity' market...?

[Eric Lorence]

As long as those stats are clearly stated on the page, I would have to say 30% is about par for charity operations, even the biggest ones.

Really depends how much their overhead is, though there shouldn't be any "profit" from charity work.

But yes, I can see how it would seem unethical.

[Rob Toth]

>> do you think this is a good strategy to make huge profit by exploiting the 'charity' market...?

I think if you re-read that sentence right there, you already have your answer.

I'm not a fan of charities not because I don't give (I like to think I do more of that than most, unfortunately) but because it's tough to figure out which to trust.

It becomes even tougher if a third party company starts making claims of what they are really giving to that charity.

As long as they follow through on their promise then, that's fine. So if "for every order $1 will be donated to ____", then 100,000 orders should mean the charity walks with $100,000... NOT ... $100,000 minus admin costs and transfer costs and handling costs and ink+paper costs and recycling levy fees etc.

Communicate with the prospect during the promotion and then stick to what you promised.

Does it make sense to align yourself with a charity effort though? Sure. It's really a win-win. If done right, you increase your brand's image AND sales volume, yet you give a hefty donation to the cause. (And the end user walks with the benefit of whatever you sold them).

[Lynn Stivers]

I never cared for that sort of thing personally but believe it or not most official charities operate that way. Some only give 10% to 20% to the cause they're supposed to be raising funds for.

There are some good ones that do give most of their profits to the cause - this website reports those kinds of things about almost any charity group you can think of...
Charity Navigator - America's Largest Charity Evaluator

Check on the charity you're thinking of donating to and see how they spend the funds before you give.


Lynn

[Frank Ayres]

Look at it this way they are getting 30% of something, if he didn't run this site they would get 100% of nothing

[rosetrees]

Is he making a profit from his 70% or is that his genuine costs? What does he actually say on the site. Does he say part of the money raised will go to xyz charity or does he imply he is giving all the money away. If in doubt, look at the Charity Commission website.

Also, does the charity understand what is involved in the arrangement?