Where Has All Our Money Gone?

In November I sent a letter to the president of the MS Society to find out why 48% of what we raise goes towards administration costs. I believe it was Newsweek which did a study of all the charitable organizations in Canada and compared the money they raised and their expenses, while we did not come out on top we were second.
Secondly our financial reports for 2009 2010 which are released annually indicates that our society allocates 18% of what we raise to research. To me that is nothing but a slap in the face, for 17 years my spouse and I have participated in many fundraising events, always under the impression the majority of what we raised was being directed towards research. Never been so wrong in my life and with primary progressive MS nothing matters more to me than research.

Finally last week I received a response "a two liner" from one of the executives asking me for my phone number so that we could discuss the issues I raised in my letter? Let's see he has my address, my name of which there are only three with house phones in Canada, obviously he has my e-mail address. Should someone show him how to use 411?

Shall we say I was flabbergasted why should I discuss figures published by the MS Society regarding their fund allocation? It's not as if a five-minute conversation would change anything it's a done deal. If you'd like to see it just do a search on Google for the MS financial reports and you'll see what I mean. My response to him followed a few days later indicating that I saw no use in discussing the figures his organization had published what would be the sense? I will no longer raise funds to support an organization where the majority of the money goes towards paying top executives. For one thing I'm tired of asking my friends and family to support me every year for our annual walk to do so this year would simply be unthinkable.

Here's the kicker, I sent the note and received an automated reply that he would be out of the office until January 24!
Now I know why we need to raise so much money.

Just for a laugh Care Canada and organizations like Shepherds of Good Hope came in that approximately 3% of funds raised being directed towards administration.

At $.18 on the dollar at least he is guaranteed employment for a long long time. At that rate how much research can we expect to conduct? It's a joke.

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside doesn't it?