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Tangential to our topic... how does one donate to cancer research effectively?

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Posted 9/7/2014 12:14 AM (GMT 0)
Those of us with prostate cancer, any cancer, want effective research to be well funded. We, our friends, and our families are willing to donate to research. How do we find efficient ways to donate to those doing actual research?

The "Stand Up 2 Cancer" program aired last night, and it got me thinking about the financial performance of such "non-profits". That one turns out to be a subsidiary of sorts of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, which provides money to some cancer research non-profit agencies, and also to non-cancer related ones. A fraction of its income goes to the agencies, much of it is consumed within the organization. This is pretty common unfortunately with non-profits. The EIF's latest filing shows $49,341,142 of revenue. They report $19,585,785 for the Stand Up 2 Cancer initiative, so 40% or so. Their public form 990s are here: eifoundation.org/legal/form990.

Anyway, the cancer related agencies it then donates to are also non-profits. Each of them also consumes a portion of the money they receive within their own organization some more or less than others.

"Zero - the End of Prostate Cancer", is another in this category. It takes some effort to go into these documents, and look into them. But it's worth it to direct our contributions to where they'll do the most good.

This goes on layer after layer, non-profits distributing money inefficiently to other non-profits. If you donate money to the visible organization, it seems it yields a rather small part of any final real output. 40% of a dollar is 40 cents. 40% of 40 cents is 16 cents. The numbers collapse pretty fast. "Call the number on the screen", your dollars will yield only pennies where they're needed.

The organizations have to submit their numbers to the IRS on a Form 990, readily available on line, if anyone's interested in looking into this area. Here's a link to one of the sites where most these can be found:
foundationcenter.org/findfunders/990finder

Anyway, has anyone here looked for efficient organizations, or have ideas for effective ways to donate? I have friends and relatives that would probably like to help, but I'm concerned about suggesting how they can donate to really help, and not to just line the pockets of people running so-called non-profit organizations.

(For what it's worth, this line of investigation got me in some hot water with my national motorcycling organization a few years ago, even banning me from their website because they didn't want anyone looking into their situation. So, proceed with some caution if you're interested in digging further.)
Posted 9/7/2014 7:38 AM (GMT 0)
This is a good post. While I have not been diagnosed with cancer, I am always scared of it, and I have obsessive-compulsive syndrome so I always read on pubmed and other news sources on cancer research.
It is my personal belief that money is best spent going directly to the researchers in need, as opposed to through organizations. But this requires one to go through research and pick those that seem the most promising.
I am pretty young(32) and I haven't been diagnosed with anything yet, but from my extensive readings I have concluded that if I were to make my donations, they'd go to these 2 fields:
1) David Vesely's research on heart hormones for the treatment of cancer:
http://omicsonline.org/cardiac-hormones-for-the-treatment-of-prostate-cancer-1948-5956.S1-001.php?aid=1914
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080226104403.htm

2) Zheng Cui's research on Leukolyte Transfusion therapy to cure cancer:
http://www.zapcancer.org/more-info/white-cell-infusion-therapy

I don't think you will find too many research that uses the body's natural agents and have 80-100% elimination of tumors. In fact, non of the mice that had PANCREATIC tumor that were treated with heart hormones actually died of cancer. The heart hormones also killed up to 97% of ovarian cancer cells in 24 hours...and your body makes this hormone naturally (and I am willing to bet nobody here knew the heart made hormones:) I sure did not before I read the research). My own opinion on the heart hormones research is that this probably won't be the "cure" but it could buy a person a few years of side-effects free life. Cancer can actually mutate to not respond to these hormones over time (but it takes a few generations).

With regard to Zheng Cui's treatment using white blood cells - this will potentially be a cure for all cancer, because for each tumor type that a person has, there is SOMEONE in the world who has the white blood cells to kill it. The problem is we do not have database of all tumor matched up with all the people who's white blood cells will kill it. If this can be logistically solved, then we will be looking at the "cure" that does not involve any of the side effects of chemo or surgery or drugs or whatever, and could be a permanent solution as the super white blood cells also kill cancer stem cells, so lowering the risk of recurrence.

I have to say these are just my personal opinion after looking through all the different research, and I was hoping that when I make more money down the line, I could donate to one of these two research as they seem the most promising.
Posted 9/7/2014 8:38 AM (GMT 0)
From Consumer Reports.org

The cost of fundraising

When your donation goes through a third party—such as a fundraising firm or federation, or a crowd-funding website—not all of it will go to the cause you’d like to support.

Professional fundraisers siphon off an average of 39 cents to 51 cents of every dollar raised, according to three recent state fundraising reports we checked. (The BBB Wise Giving Alliance says fundraising costs should average no more than 35 cents of every dollar raised.) Local United Ways on average retain 13.8 cents of every dollar to cover fundraising and administrative costs. And we’ve seen fees as high as 12 percent at crowd-funding sites.

Third-party fees are not necessarily bad. There are many costs associated with raising money, such as credit-card fees and the expense of maintaining websites. Without some of the third- party resources, it could cost charities even more to raise money.

When asked to give through a third party, find out how much of your contribution will go to the group you want to support. You may be able to limit how much third parties take. By default, DonorChoose.org, a nonprofit that helps teachers raise money for education-related projects, takes 15 percent of your donation for its own charitable operations before passing the rest to the educational project. But it gives donors the option of changing that amount, reducing it to as little as 0 percent.


Check the watchdogs. National charities are evaluated by three major groups: the BBB Wise Giving Alliance; CharityWatch; and Charity Navigator. They use different criteria in their assessments, so check them all.

www.bbb.org/us/charity

www.charitywatch.org/

www.charitynavigator.org/
Posted 9/7/2014 12:06 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks for the responses, this is a pretty dry topic for most I'm sure.

Interestingly, Charity Navigator is also a non-profit, whose entire income is consumed in salaries and expenses, about 1/3 for officers and key employees, and the rest for unspecified salaries and office expenses. That's ok, since their mission is really a type of office work anyway.

What bothers me is they don't say where their income comes from. It's pretty much all "gifts and grants". Their ratings always seem suspect to me, since it really looks like the fox guarding the hen house. I've looked at charities they rate rather well, whose Form 990s tell quite a different story. It's really hard to find truly good non-profits, unfortunately.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't donate, but it's just difficult to find effective ways to do so.
Posted 9/7/2014 6:27 PM (GMT 0)
Donate directly to a research institution (aka, Medical College) for the sole use of direct cancer research.
There are so many and they all need funding for so many things.
Posted 9/7/2014 7:44 PM (GMT 0)
I used to donate to several non profits until I also did the research and realized how little actually gets used for the purpose of my donation.

Now, I donate straight to MD Anderson for research and the rest goes to my cousin who created a non profit when her 21 year old son died of colo-rectal cancer. He actually started it and it is designed to help offset the cost of those needing a place to stay for cancer treatment. Every few days I see where the donations have been made, as his mom posts the pictures of them donating. It may not be for research, but it is helping those requiring treatment and their family by having a place to stay. While this may not find a cure, it sure helps people find a remission.
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