November 25, 2004 | Read Time: 1 minute
Slightly more than one-third of the money professional fund-raising companies raised on behalf of Connecticut charities ended up in the hands of the nonprofit groups, according to a report by state officials.
That was the highest percentage to go to charities in the 17 years that the state has been tracking the performance of paid telephone solicitors, but Connecticut officials said they were still concerned that fund-raising companies are keeping too much of the money as profits. In a press release accompanying the report, state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said, “Paid solicitors give good causes a bad name.”
Because of a sharp decline in the total amount of contributions raised by the phone solicitors, the amount going to the charities fell sharply in 2003. Donors gave a little more than $8-million in response to the phone calls, of which 35.5 percent — or $2.9-million — went to the charities. The remainder was kept by the companies to cover expenses and as profit.
In 2002, phone solicitors raised $13.9-million, turning $4.6-million over to the charities.
Solicitation companies have long complained that the reports issued by Connecticut and other states are unfair, because they fail to take into account factors that can affect the cost of a fund-raising campaign, including the type of charity involved and the rising expenses involved in phone solicitations in an era when many people refuse even to listen to a fund-raising pitch on the phone.
The Connecticut report is available online at http://www.ct.gov/dcp/ch03creport.
