mattlary's weblog

After the United Way campaign at work, I’ve been looking more into charities and how they operate; I found a website called Charity Navigator a little while back that helps to evaluate how effective charities are and I’ve been using it more lately.  If you look up a charity, it gives you a chart showing where their money goes (i.e. how much gets spent on fundraising and administrative costs).  It also shows how much the CEOs of the organizations make.

What I found interesting is that the United Way of Rochester passes around 83% of its income to programs- this is pretty standard.  However, since they’re a fundraising organization, the organizations that give to may also have to keep around %20 for their administrative/fundraising costs.  So of your $100 donation to UW, it may be that $80 makes it to the recipient organization(s).  Then the recipient organization(s) may keep 20% for their administrative/fundraising fees, so in the end, only $64 of the original $100 actually goes to programs.  I could be wrong, but it’s an interesting thing to look into.  In the end it’s not a huge deal, because good administrators are needed to make organizations effective, and they need to spend money to make money- It’s just food for thought.

On a side note, I learned that Thomson has a matching gifts program; it’s pretty cool because it effectively doubles what you give.  So any Thomson West readers, check that out- you can use it for a wide range of charities and it’s pretty easy.

It is the time of year when stories of a man and his humanity are important to share…..

I truly love this story and it will surely bring a tear to your eye! I know it did mine.

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University .

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air.

The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant’s foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it.

As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.

The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.

Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away.

Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Mbemb was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing.

The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn’t help wondering if this was the same elephant.

Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.

The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe’s legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn’t the same elephant.