Hacker News Reader

Comment by mNovak | Hacker News Reader

While this is also true, the article is more about the direct scam that is fundraising companies. These are in principle separate of the charity, basically running a call center and collecting the funds, and that company pockets 90% of the funds people think they're donating to the charity. Of course the 'charity' is aware of this and is complicit, either because they have no other means of fundraising, or (as seems to be the case in this article) the charity is also a scam, basically just having a good name to plug into the script.

Point is, it's more than just writing off parties and entertainment or high salaries, it's directly taking cash in pocket.

View on HN

I worked with about a dozen or so for a few years and from what I saw they are nothing but one layer of horror built upon another. The incentives are so misaligned that the distinction between "scam" and "incompetence" is virtually meaningless. There is absolutely zero sense of financial reality or proportion present anywhere. If your organization spends $500,000 to rescue one dog but gets a lot of media coverage and banks a ton of photos and video to use in future fundraising efforts, this is a win. If next year you spend $10 million on marketing and development events and are able to raise $10,600,0000 for your efforts, that's also a win.

One especially crazy example of this thinking is the constant internal fundraising efforts. Most of the organizations I worked with were constantly doing internal fundraising, e.g. collecting donation from the same employees they were paying. These efforts would consume absolutely enormous amounts of on the clock employee time on frankly quite childish activities (think accountants doing arts and crafts with markers and construction paper) to raise a pittance in donations from their own employees. Most of the organizations did this once per month. In some cases this consumed an entire workday for a large proportion of employees for an average donation of $5-$15 dollars.

That's the plot of some recent, just 'so-so' action movie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beekeeper_(2024_film)

You'll get to see these call centers being blown up, and some scammers beaten or killed by the main protagonist. Also government/political conspiracy, because the main villain is the son of Mrs. President. And of course the secret service protecting her and family at all costs against revenge.

Maybe also elements of persiflage of current tech-guruism.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com