Commercial Solicitors in California Kept Over Half of Donations

By HARVY LIPMAN

Commercial solicitors registered in California raised nearly $200-million in 1999, and gave slightly less than half of that to charities, according to a report by state Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

Charities received 48 percent of the money solicited on their behalf in 1999; in 1998, they received 43 percent. Of the 496 fund-raising campaigns included in the report, 192 (39 percent) returned more than 50 percent to charities. Nonprofit groups received 15 percent or less of the contributions in 130 campaigns (26 percent of the total), including 33 in which the charities received no money.

Mr. Lockyer also reported that Californians donated thousands of used cars to commercial fund raisers who were able to resell them for $32.4-million, of which about one-third was passed on to nonprofit groups.

California made one change to the format of its annual report this year. Some charities and fund-raising companies had complained that the state had been publishing misleading figures for multiple-year campaigns, requiring fund raisers to file reports each year even in cases when a campaign had not been completed. Because expenses are higher in the beginning of a multiple-year campaign, the critics said, reporting what fund raisers had taken in and given out to charities before a campaign was completed made it look as if the company was keeping a higher percentage of the money than it actually was. To stem such criticism, this year’s report includes only those multiple-year campaigns that had been completed by the end of the 1999 reporting period.

Free copies of the report can be obtained at http://caag.state.ca.us/charities/publications/cfrreport.pdf, or by writing the office’s Public Inquiry Unit, P.O. Box 944255, Sacramento, Calif. 94244.