March of Dimes = 2 star charity?

pillowbling

Whenever I start donating to a new charity, I always look it up on Charity Navigator. They rate the organization and compare it to other charities. I was suprised to find that MOD only got 2 stars! Apparently the CEO makes a half million dollars and that lowers their rating slightly, plus they do a TON of fundraising. I know they do AMAZING stuff, but I just thought I'd share.

https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=4045

preemieparent

Hmm.  I think this site has an unusal way of rating various aspects.  

The CEO salary is NOTHING campared to organizations like UnitedWay and the Red Cross.  Some of those CEOs get paid several million a year.   

The program expenses is where I am confused.  The programs are what the March of Dimes is all about.  It's what they fundraise towards/for.  Of course they are the highest part.  Maybe I'm not reading it correctly?  It just felt to me like they were making that expense into a negative.

Now I will say that the March of Dimes as a whole needs a far better approach to marketing, communication, etc.   They are terrible at it.   It amounts to spam rather than useful information that gets people to donate.

The cool thing about donating to the March of DImes?   Over 70 cents of every dollar goes directly to March of Dimes programs, research, etc.   They don't pay for any advertising unlike other non-profits.

pillowbling

That's true. I guess you can also say part of their fundraising is raising awareness. Although I agree, most of it is spam-like.