Tis’ the season to donate and if you’re so inclined there are lots of folks trying to help you do it. Facebook has jumped into the game with an application to give Facebook Charity Gifts. Through the app, you make a donation as a gift in a friend’s name and your friend receives a nifty icon on their Facebook page. Sounds like a great proposition, right? The problem is that Facebook did not do its homework on all these nonprofits.
A quick check on Charity Navigator reveals that only seven of the twenty-one nonprofits (33%) were given 4-star ratings: American National Red Cross, One Economy Corporation, Heal the Bay, Islamic Relief, MERCY CORPS, Humane Society of The United States and United States Fund for UNICEF. One group earned 3-stars (“good”), two groups earned 2-stars (“fair”), two are hospitals (and not 501c3 charities)[CORRECTION: the hospitals are both in fact 501c3s] and seven groups were not even rated, including one group with no website [CORRECTION: LOVEFUTBOL does have a very nice website], no HQ and listed “c/o” someone who apparently lives around the corner from me. I should add that looking at the rating is not always enough. As a reader named David pointed out in a comment to the post last week, notwithstanding its 4-star rating, UNICEF has its own questionable practices.
Facebook’s promotion of questionable charities came to my attention last week when researching another charity giving scheme. Call me naive, but I was surprised to find out that the mainstream media hasn’t been researching what it was writing about. Don’t all charities deserve support anyhow? Actually, not all charities are created equal. In the words of Charity Watch, make your donation count more, review charities before you donate:
As charities face inflation, government budget cuts and an increasing public demand for services, they ask you for more donations. Increasing numbers of charities use high-tech fundraising techniques. Mailboxes overflow with fund-raising appeals. Phone calls pour in from high-pressure solicitors. All this can leave you confused about which charities are most deserving of your contributions. Most charities are honest and accountable to their donors. Unfortunately, a few are not.
(Check out Charity Watch’s tips for giving wisely.)
There are thousands of terrific nonprofit organizations that do 4-star work and send the vast majority of your donations directly to the programs that they support. But, there are plenty that don’t strive for fiscal excellence. Some use a good chunk’s of your donation to pay for big salaries, fancy offices and slick fundraising appeals. So, when an article in Forbes mentions a nonprofit, they are tacitly endorsing it. All it seems to take is a well written press release. But, its not just the MSM. In an attempt to jump on the corporate social responsibility bandwagon, lots of companies—some with very far reaching messaging—are doing the same, including Facebook.
It begs the question, how did Facebook decide which nonprofits would receive its tremendous marketing clout? Did someone’s high school boyfriend think up LOVE FUTBOL? Is Youth Service America and its 2-stars an advertiser? I think we need to know. Facebook has 90 million active members and this kind of endorsement is potentially huge. Given the stats on some of these groups, however, it smells a lot like charity wash or reckless CSR. For the record, I sent a bunch of emails asking about selection criteria to various staff members at the group credited with building the app, Project Agape, but heard nothing back. So, lets send a message to Facebook: it really isn’t hard to set some standards, guys. You owe it to us.
The other point is that we should choose only high performing nonprofits to align with. There are plenty of opportunities to align with really good nonprofits that strive for excellence and transparency. Take Ecohaus, a distributor of green building supplies and household products in the Pacific Northwest. This holiday season customers can drop off non-perishable food items destined for two local food banks and enter a drawing for a $100 ecohaus gift certificate. When I clicked through to the food bank sites from the ecohaus site, both food banks state right upfront how much money goes to admin and how much goes to programs. No mention of “nominal fees” or any other such marketing claims. Ecohaus’ CSR program is well designed (CSR that brings potential customers through the doors) and they obviously know and trust the charities with which they have aligned. CSR is really good stuff, but programs and alliances need to be designed carefully and with thought. Just the way you do everything else in your business.
Update: At 6:37PM EST, December 2, 2008, I received this response from Malorie Lucich at Facebook (Malorie@facebook.com):
Hi Jennifer,
All of the third party developers that build applications on Facebook Platform must adhere to Facebook’s Developer Terms of Use, including “You must be honest and accurate about what your application does and how it uses information from Facebook users. Your application cannot falsely represent itself.”
You can find more information here:
http://developers.facebook.com/terms.php
Also wanted to mention that Facebook has over 120 million active users. You can find additional stats here: http://www.facebook.com/facebook#/press/info.php?statistics
Best,
Malorie
So, what do you think? Looks like they are passing the buck…
Update #2: It turns out that Facebook’s reach and influence is even greater than thought. First, I found out that in the last 2 years more people are being driven to charity web sites off Facebook than driven off of email; and, as Malorie mentioned, they actually have 120 million active users. Given their tremendous influence Facebook should be ashamed to not take the high ground.
Update#3: This is LOVFUTBOL’s HQ, 5105 Chevy Chase Parkway
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