Nepal Earthquake Relief Fund

[Mistwell]

My wife started a small fund for Earthquake Relief. All monies raised will go to UNICEF.

 

[Mistwell]

My wife wrote an article on it for Geekmom.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Do NOT use UNICEF!
The most vile non-charity, and the most egregious offender of the concept of "non-profit". Look at the snopes reports.
Any organization where the president gets a salary in excess of $600K (plus perks and benefits) is NOT a charity.
When less than 3% of the money you receive goes to the cause you claim to be championing, that's Fraud.

 

[Mistwell]

You should read the Snopes article you referenced. You're wrong - across the board. His salary isn't even close to that, and both Charity Navigator and Forbes rate this organization's efficiency at 91%. See here.

And really, if you were going to threadcrap a charity thread (I mean wow - totally undiplomatic approach there buddy - way to completely miss the tone), I'd think you would at the very least read the thing you're citing before posting about it.

For those interested, my wife wrote a GeekMom article on this.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Terribly sorry: I was confusing the numbers of UNICEF with those from American Red Cross. The Snopes article link you provided has the correct and accurate figures. Look at them and and decide for yourself.

 

[addseo1118]

Is this real about UNICEF?

 

[Umbran]

Is this real about UNICEF?

UNICEF is a fine charity. There was a letter/article that went around for a while, claiming that it wasn't. That letter was at best out of date, or inaccurate, at worst it was full of lies.

Snopes says:

"UNICEF: The e-mail is not specific about which executive is being referred to here, as UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Fund) is a global organization with offices in 190 countries. We're assuming the reference is to the President and CEO of the United States Fund for UNICEF, Caryl M. Stern, whose last reported total yearly compensation was $472,891, not $1,200,000. Both Charity Navigator and Forbes rate this organization's efficiency at 91%, far greater than the 14% claimed in the e-mail cited above. In response to the claim that UNICEF's CEO receives "a Royal Royce for his exclusive use where ever he goes," UNICEF told us that "There is no Rolls Royce or company car provided for any staff member at UNICEF or the U.S. Fund, including the President and CEO of the U.S. Fund or UNICEF’s Executive Director."

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/charities.asp#LYrqyvDtcj7Ojedi.99

In general, if you want to give to a charity, it is probably good to do some research. There are services out there that go over the financial records of charities and rate them for you. Charity Navigator is a major such service, and you can see here that they give UNICEF (US) flying colors:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4617#.VUBKmyFViko

This includes the fact that their administrative expences are only 2.7% of their overall budget. And they take in a dollar for every $0.06 they spend on fundraising.

As for the American Red Cross, they aren't as good as UNICEF, but they aren't too shabby. Snopes says:

"American Red Cross: The information presented above is outdated (as of October 2010), as Marsha J. Evans resigned her position as CEO of the American Red Cross in 2005. The current President and CEO of the American Red Cross (since 2008) is Gail J. McGovern, whose total yearly compensation for 2010 was about $1,037,000 (considerably higher than the $651,957 figure mentioned above) and for 2011 was about $561,000. Charity Navigator and Forbes both rate this organization's efficiency at 92%, much higher than the 39% figure claimed in the e-mail."

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/charities.asp#LYrqyvDtcj7Ojedi.99

And Charity Navigator gives them a decent, but not stellar, rating:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3277#.VUDTBiFViko