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Comment by AndrewKemendo | Hacker News Reader

NGOs are primarily money laundering operations for political purposes.

It’s one of the primary mechanics for how capital controls the execution (or not) of policy.

Very powerful tool.

In San Francisco a friend ran an event for an LGBT policy non-profit, tons of private security yet no actual members of LGBT, only rich white hetero couples and the discussion was about finances and donations, nothing to do with LGBT policy impact, it was like pulling back a curtain…

Donating to a charity is kind of like outsourcing thinking. There is a market for people who want to help the LGBT community. How do we do that? Idk this group says they know how

Or they want to feel/say they are helping the community while actually not risking getting their hands dirty.

There's a derisive term 'limousine liberals' that fits the bill here.

Try https://www.charitynavigator.org , which tells you what percentage of donated money is directly spent on the cause versus administration, staffing, etc. Charities vary widely, and it’s worth comparing charities in the same space, e.g., healthcare, hunger relief, veterans, because different spaces have different overheads.

Not so much the problem.

The bigger issue is a ton of foundations are just bribery enabling organizations. There's a reason pretty much every politician and rich person has one.

Donate $10k and the foundation can pay for a lavish speaking engagement in the Bahamas. The foundation head can give a 10 minute $50000 talk about how poverty is bad and then they enjoy the open bar and conversations with rich and powerful people.

Let's be frank, the average citizen isn't giving a dime to the George Clooney foundation for justice [1]. So you have to ask, why does such a foundation exist?

[1] https://cfj.org/

I don't know anything about the CFJ, but their 990 from 2024 suggests that they really aren't spending much on overhead besides wages and salaries[1].

[1]: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/813...

And Susan G Komen has a 93% rating on that site. What an absolute joke.

This may be true of organisations that are funded by USAid, etc; so they essentially allow the Government of the day to execute policies while attempting to avoid responsibility when the "my tax money pays for what" questions arise.

A lot of NGOs/charities/foundations are simply vehicles for tax avoidance/reduction or nepotistic job creation. There are very few that are truly altruistic, or maybe once were but eventually become indistinguishable from a corporation in how they are run, and what they pay their executives.

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