Thursday 28 August 2014

Water Challenge Not All It Seems

Cold water plays havoc with my hair so i needed an excuse to get out of the offers to allow someone to pour cold water over my head and pay £3 for the privilege.
Handily, the little hairstyle saving gem that the of the £3, only 7.7% (21p) goes to actually researching motor neurone disease (also known as ALS) has popped up just in time.
Luckily the annual report for the ALS Association who is benefiting from all the damp hair is available to view online and on the right hand side of page 12 it has a breakdown of where the $50,624,493 raised in the 2012 year went, 7.7% to research, 10% to administration, 18.1% to fund raising and a whopping 63% to other activities.
The 'other activities' is open to interpretation but it probably includes the wages of the ALS staff including the President and CEO, Jane H. Gilbert, who took home $339,475.00 from her ALS job in 2013.
With all the buckets of water being poured over men, women and children in the name of ALS research over the past few weeks, the charity is expected to raise a bumper $88.5 million this year but it is quite sobering to think that the £8.23 million that will actually be put towards finding a cure for the disease is a great boost but not as much of a boost if the researchers had the full £88.5 million to fund them instead of a slim percentage of it. 
It is great that so many people are getting behind such a worthy cause but how disappointing that the organisation that is getting the lions share of the money from peoples generosity is such a lousy example of a charity.
By all means get yourself wet but you could go put 50p in an Multiple Sclerosis tin on the counter in most shops or buy a book from Oxfam for 50p and you will be benefiting the recipients more than paying the £3 to this bunch and contributing £1.89 of it to to their shady 63% 'other activities' and you won't have to spend an hour blow-drying your hair afterwards.

6 comments:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
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Lucy said...

It clearly states 7.7% research, 63% 'other activities, no way to spin that.

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lucy said...

Under Expenses on page 10 i can see £3,904,240 under research grants, which is the same amount on the 7.7% Research on page 12.

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.