That's why I usually go with The Salvation Army over United Way or Red Cross.

According to the Chicago Trib, it started with Limbaugh:

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/po...pid_words.html

Indeed. I haven't done any reading on the topic recently. I'd imagine that there are a few charities that are very lucky (or incredibly smart) and have nearly all-volunteer staffing and subsidized office space or some such thing and manage to get an extremely high portion of funds brought in out to their cause, whatever it might be. If their TV ad does not contain mathematical shenanigans, one of them is The Lustgarten Foundation. They claim that they only keep 4% of donated funds, and it may be legitimately true, since IIRC their offices and much of their budget is picked up by the Dolan family, they of the Knicks, Rangers and MSG.

Sad but true.

Yes, the end is coming, and we all need to load up on provisions, according to the news... :rolleyes:

I remember staying in Anaheim across the street from Disneyland - the Howard Johnson's on Harbor Boulevard right by the ramp for the 5. It rained one morning, and we were on the top floor of their tower and had a view down onto Harbor. It couldn't have been too much more than a drizzle, and there were near-constant sounds of screeching tires on both sides of Harbor. I was more tempted to sit on the roof of the hotel and watch the drivers than I was to go to Disney that day.

Not sure about the transcons; I know there are some 319s. The wide-bodies that do pass through are on hub runs for capacity or fleet utilization reasons.

Agree. I also wonder how they would account for donations that are given/transferred to another Red Cross. Structurally, there is an international Red Cross headquartered in Geneva with local Red Cross organizations in varying countries. Specifically, therefore, as in the case with Haiti now, varying local Red Cross orgs will send funds and personnel/volunteers. These efforts may be coordinated by the International Red Cross. I wonder if those are considered as overhead for the local agencies (since on paper it may look like money being sent to IRC).

In terms of vehicles, etc. I also know that those end up being donated across Red Cross organizations as their lifetime in one country may be "up" but would still be very helpful (and appreciated) in another country with fewer funds/technology. Again, I wonder how those are accounted for in the math...

The PATH train is $1.75 per trip and the subway is $2.25 plus the $5.00 JFK monorail. Total cost to/from JFK from Jersey city is $18.00 with free weekend parking. Not too shabby.

The Red Cross has been involved in some previous scandals, in which they make fundraising appeals for X, but then use the money donated (presumably for X) to fund programs A, B, and C. I think that the most well known of this type of accounting manuever was made public in the wake of 9/11.

Another questionable issue with regard to the Red Cross is their blood bank operation(s), and how, at times, money is seemingly the most important thing to them.

I don't even begin to pretend to know what charity is a good one, but it does seem to me that the larger charities may not be the ones that do the most good.

We used to have an employee charitable giving fund at work that we could contribute to direct out of our paycheck (because people got sick of United Way's overhead). There was a "board of directors" (all employees of various ranks) that reviewed grant applications and directed the funds. It was nice, because the company picked up 100% of the overhead costs of the program.

They ended the program last year, but they did increase the matching they do on our contributions now, so in the end, it worked out OK. They have their own version of a DEQM promo next week - they'll match my donations 2-for-1.

I'm a huge fan of the USO, Fisher House, and the Rotary Foundation. Three large entities that do measurable and noticeable good.

HA HA yes that would be awesome

When I was in college and working for JCPenney, United Way membership was damn near compulsory. They hounded me endlessly about filling out my donation form. I did not. :-:

Yeah, the USO is pretty ^.