When I took it upon myself to work on the first project that my company was going to release, I learned a great deal about non-profit organizations. Since this first project dealt with charity awareness and donations, a great deal of my research was focused in that arena. Charities and public service programs are the most common form of non-profit organizations, and have the most awareness and visibility of the public. However, later, I was greatly surprised to find out that there are a tremendous amount of non-profit organizations, whose sole purpose is to raise funds for charities and public services programs!
Once I learned about all of the methods in which charities earn funds for their organizations, I suddenly noticed a flaw in the system. Why were there so many non-profit organizations needed to raise funds for charities and public service programs? This was the question that I began with. However, just as anyone that knows me personally can tell you, I'm never satisfied with identifying a problem. I also have to come up with one or more solutions. Little did I know that I was going to later answer my own question better than all of the research in the world!
Charities spend a certain percentage of their income each year on programs and events which are designed specifically on fund-raising for their organizations. This is extremely familiar to the public, and is a large percentage of most charities' annual income. Good Samaritans, or private donors, also donate a large amount of money each year to various charities and public service programs. We are all familiar with the many telethons, fund-raisers, and silent auctions we are presented with in a year's time. There are even corporate sponsors, or products which donate a portion of their proceeds to affiliated charities. However, whenever you analyze the total revenue donated from a single corporation to their total annual income, it is a small percentage indeed!
So, where does a solution for fund-raising non-profit organizations come into play? As I said, I answered my own question. My first project was one which donates twenty-five percent of its earned revenue to participating charities. I then later made a conscious decision to ensure that each program that I launched would have a contribution, direct or indirect, to charities. This would basically mean that the program would have a donation to charities that was visible to the public (i.e. the program is designed to create donations for charities), or that the program would be a money-maker for my company, and I would simply donate a portion of the earnings to a charity or group of charities. By focusing upon this promise, it will increase my own awareness of charities that need help, and will help them even more than just an individual personal donation would.
Now, this percentage will not always be twenty-five percent, as my first project currently donates. However, perhaps I can consider a more realistic percentage of say ten percent? Since I just started my company in 2007, I can easily structure my company to constantly account for a ten percent donation of earnings to charities, and I do understand the difficulty involved for large or established companies to suddenly start to donate ten percent of their earned income to charities. However, I am also aware of how easy it would be to begin a charity donation program starting at one percent, and then gradually increasing that donation percentage over the years. Or, how about new corporate divisions which are created over the years? How difficult would it be to ensure that new corporate divisions or projects are structured to donate a percentage of its earnings to a single charity, or group of charities?
Now, consider this solution, but on a much larger scale. If all new corporations donate ten percent of their earnings to a charity or group of charities, how much revenue would that generate for charities annually? Then, take the next step and have all existing corporations begin their charity donation program by beginning to donate one percent, or even a half of a percent of their annual earnings to charity. Then, these existing organizations can increase this amount over the next ten to fifteen years, depending upon their profitability, until they also reach ten percent. In the end, you would be looking at a monstrous amount of donated money to charities in America and around the world every year!
What happens at this point? First, the need for non-profit fund-raising organizations slowly diminishes. So, as their need goes away, and as they go away themselves, what happens to the jobs that they created? Well, the charities, that are now getting tremendously more donations annually than they every have in the past, now can afford to hire more people to assist them in accomplishing their goals. Hiring more people was definitely not an option in the past due to limited funding. However, with Corporate America now providing a tremendous amount of charity funds that never existed before, it would now be possible for them to hire more people and to assist more people through their efforts in the process!
Secondly, the need to monitor charities, and how they administrate these highly elevated earnings, increases. Also, since there will most likely be new government tax incentives for companies that donate a larger percentage of their annual earnings to charity, there will also be a need to monitor those programs, as well as the companies that are taking advantage of them. The Better Business Bureau currently handles charity evaluation, but it is optional for charities to belong to this community. Perhaps, with the increased amount of donations, as well as the pressure of Corporate America, it will then become a requirement for corporations to belong to the Better Business Bureau community instead of it being an option. With an extreme elevation in the amount of charity corporations being monitored, it will then become necessary for the B.B.B. to hire a significant amount of people to support this increased effort. The IRS will still be responsible for monitoring corporations and their donations, but even they will need to hire more personnel in order to account for these new tax structure changes and the amount of hours required to properly monitor and audit these corporations and their use of them.
How will corporations choose which charities to donate to? Well, of course corporations can pick and choose using any means that they feel to be appropriate. With these changes, organizations like United Way will probably have an elevated demand due to the fact that a lot of corporations may want to donate to organizations that will blanket their donations over many charities, instead of simply donating to a few. This is good because it will also ensure that most of the annual donations from corporations don't go to a select few charities, causing the remaining charities to miss out on the benefits of this program. Corporations could even split their donations over several of these charity communities, to maximize the number of charities actually benefiting from their donations. However, there will also be corporations that are looking to make a specific difference, and will market their assistance to these specific charities to the public.
What does this mean in the bigger picture of things? Well, charities will have more visibility from the government due to the new tax programs for all of the contributing corporations. Charities will also gain more visibility from the public due to their increased visibility from donating corporations. Some corporations may directly market their donations to specific charities to the public. However, increased revenue to charities will mean that they can also spend more on marketing and advertising, and will most likely provide at least a small amount of cross promotion for their major corporate donors as well. This will provide yet another benefit and incentive for corporate donors.
Charity integrity will increase, and charity fraud will decrease. Having all charities required to be a part of the B.B.B community, will mean that they will also be participating in the B.B.B. stringent investigations and guidelines. This will mean that any charity that is not found within the B.B.B. website should be immediately reported to the authorities. It will become extremely difficult to fool the public into donating to a false charity, and will make it easier for the Justice Department to find individuals that are running charity donation scams. The public will have greater power to report fraudulent charities, and they will be engaged to report them. Good Samaritans hate being scammed, especially when it comes to money that they are donating for a cause that they are passionate about!
In the end, after all of the changes settle and the final kinks are dealt with by policy changes as well as new laws, we are finally looking at a total lack of a need for fund-raising non-profit organizations. The total annual charitable donations from corporation will increase in the billions. Charities will finally have the increased funds that they need without having to scramble and hunt for donors, meaning that they can focus more time and money on the actual issues that they are addressing. Charities will also not have a pressing need to advertise and market to obtain funding, and instead will probably do so in order to raise public awareness. In the end, the increased contributions to charities will mean that they will be able to hire more people within their organizations to get out there and to make a greater difference within their communities. More helpers mean more people being helped. Every single one of these benefits elevates the ability of a charity to effectively make a difference in their cause, thus raising their overall effectiveness.
In closing, I have begun my journey down this path by administrating my company in the manner detailed within this article. I do so in hopes that perhaps my projections and predictions may become a reality, but also because I simply want to help the charities that I am assisting to make a difference. I cannot expect others to do the same, or for these changes to become a reality in the near future, even if corporations begin to move towards making these changes. However, I still move down this path in the hope that perhaps other corporations will follow. Setting a good example is about the best thing that any company owner can do for the public, as well as for their corporate community. Time will simply let me, and the readers of this article, know if my efforts truly did make a difference.
source:http://ezinearticles.com/?id=1163713&Corporate-America-Charitable-Donations-Can-Eliminate-Fund-Raising-Non-Profit-Organizations=
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