Car charitys

[Ray]

Questionable Charity using Muscle Car Giveaways
I received am email this morning via Racing Junk ad partnership for the 2013 Challenger Dream Giveaway allegedly giving away and early and late model Dodge Challenger to raise money for charities.
What I found when I looked into it was extremely disheartening and a potential black eye to the muscle car hobby IMO.
This giveaway is modeled after the successful Ronald McDonald House raffles but is run by a Florida FOR profit fund raiser run by Mark Breiner. They have several "Dream Giveaways" running currently.
Here are some articles I found on a brief search:
http://www.charitywatch.org/articles...shNetwork.html an overview of the Kids Wish whistleblower investigation.
http://cironline.org/reports/part-1-...charities-4603 A lengthy article detailing some of the tactics used by FOR profit charity consultants.
http://www.guidestar.org/organizatio...oundation.aspx a report on WorldCause (sponsor of the recently completed Mustang giveaway) Indicating that the majority of the money they raise goes to "expenses" such as fundraising.
I know these types of giveaway look appealing, but if we could get the word out so people could make informed decisions (they may not care where the money goes) I think it would improve the image of the hobby.
Just my .02
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[ramenth]

Hey, Ray, the links the post are bad. Can you repost 'em?

Unfortunately, this isn't isolated to organizations like you're mentioning. Remember the United Way scandal a couple of decades ago in the administrative costs outweighed the charitable giving. I worked for a company that wanted 100% employee participation in the United Way. I pissed off the district manager when I told him he wasn't getting a penny out of me as the practice is still in place.

You're right, though, about this giving the hobby a black eye. There was a Corvette raffle that went on here for years. Yes, years. Every summer the same group would hit the same car shows selling tickets for the same car. Then someone got suspicious that no matter how many tickets were sold, the car was never given away and alerted the proper authorities. Turns out the owner(s) had so much money wrapped up in the restoration, the raffle was reimbursing the costs of the car itself to the owner(s) and then, he planned on giving the car away... with whatever proceeds going to the charity which was being advertised.

We've had this discussion on another site about setting up a Rod Run in Sarah's name, with the proceeds going to Strong Memorial for research. I think I've found a way to do this. I have a few ideas on it. But, I can't jump in with both feet, and I think it may be better that way. It might take a few years to get it going... but I'm patient.

 

[Ray]

http://cironline.org/reports/part-1-dirty-secrets-worst-charities-4603


http://www.charitywatch.org/articles/KidsWishNetwork.html

Rob. Try these.