Dubious charities raise millions

Ronald Campbell of The Orange County Register reviewed more than 10,000 pages of court records, financial reports and other documents and found that former associates of imprisoned charity telemarketing king Mitch Gold have raised more than $83 million in four years for dubious charities. Fundraisers and
managers kept almost all the cash, leaving just 7 cents on the dollar for
charity. "A typical Gold-style contract guarantees a charity a set amount or a fixed percentage of the take — seldom more than 15 percent and sometimes far less. " The investigation analyzed a GuideStar database of more than 150,000 charities, concluding that only about 500 sizeable charities spend most of their money on fundraising. The package includes a social network analysis diagram (done with UCINET) showing how dozens of charities and fundraisers are related to each other and to Gold.