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Comment by Loughla | Hacker News Reader

I stopped donating to a very well known charity organization when I found that 85% of the annual costs were administrative, 10% we're property costs, and only 5% went to actual programs. This may be just the way the local chapter is set up, but it's fucking greasy.

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Why do people post comments like this and not name the offenders?

Do you really need an answer or are you as guilty as they are?

It's a reasonable request. Readers who see the charity to be named named may also donate to them, and seeing such a claim would make readers think twice and perhaps make their donations elsewhere.

There is almost a zero percent chance of other people here being from the small town I'm from.

Naming them doesn't do any good, because the national charity does really good work in a lot of places.

It’s not a request, it’s a rhetorical question with the same intent as the comment it’s responding to: signaling outrage.

Both are self-serving and harmful to the actual cause. Despite being on the same side of the issue, neither actually affect any change. Even worse, they both probably feel like they’ve done something to help by posting a comment on a social media site and are now less likely to take any real action

To be fair, without evidence such name-calling would not be helpful. Not talking about a specific local chapter of a single charity and instead focusing on the problem in general seems to be more helpful in this context.

Exactly. And the national charity for this example does really good work in a lot of places. Like I said, I think it's just how the local chapter is organized.

(1) Because shaming a small-scale offender misses the point. And to avoid the perception of libel.

(2) Now that you know this type of fraud is a possibility, nothing stops YOU from checking Charity Navigator before donating.

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