[pct-l] PCTA Membership

[Brian Lewis]

>
> Bob said: "I've found that I'm wary about donating because too many outfits
> seem to raise money to hire more staff to raise more money...."



The IRS Form 990 for pcta.org can be found (perhaps among other places) via
www.guidestar.org, though the most recent version I found there is for
2006.  For that year, 79% of money spent was on "program services", 7% on
"management & general", and 14% on fund raising.  I don't know how this
stacks up to other charities, probably not bad.

The 990 lets you slice and dice a little more finely, if you're so inclined;
my spouse and I analyze and give money to all charities for the whole year
at one time (about this time of year), and we just say no to requests any
other time --- I think it's best to take the time and analyze and think
about how the money is spent.  For example, of just over a million dollars
in pcta.org expenses for 2006, 42% was actually spent on salaries, pension,
and other employee benefits.  That doesn't seem to square with the 7% spent
on "management & general" per above --- that's because the 7% doesn't
include employee costs associated with program services or fund raising.
So in reality, when you take out employee costs, in 2006 at least, there was
just 58 cents left out of every dollar spent for all other.   That
includes a variety of things like travel, postage, printing costs, etc.

Note that I'm not saying that 42% spent on staff is bad --- this might be
just the optimal mix of how this organization should spend its money, but
indeed --- per the quote above, I think it is a likely outcome that more
money given to the organization is going to have a directly proportional
impact on how much additional staff can be hired, or perhaps, how much
existing staff can be retained.

But that's not all staff aimed at just raising more money; in pcta.org (in
2006), 5% of total money spent was on fund-raising staff; most (37% of total
expenses) spent on staff in 2006 was aimed at program services or "general
management".


Brian Lewis
http://postholer.com/brianle