... do some research before deciding how to proceed.
Our check (for $2.50) arrived yesterday inside a fundraising appeal, and I was immediately suspicious. Unsolicited checks can be used as vehicles for scams in which your endorsement of the check commits you to obligations in the fine print. That did not appear to be the case with this check.
The accompanying letter from Steven L. Blumenthal states -
"The $2.50 check is real. You could put this letter aside, cassh the check, and forget all about our important laboratory research and national cancer education programs. But what I really hope you will do is return the $2.50 check along with your own gift of $10.00 or more to help in our fight against cancer."
My wife immediately logged on to access the
Charity Navigator website (I would encourage everyone to bookmark this worthwhile site for future reference). The "National Cancer Research Institute" is, as indicated on their checks, a project of the Walker Cancer Research Institute, which is
rated by Charity Navigator with one star (out of a possible four) for accountability and transparency, and 2/4 for finances. They note that
over 50% of the funds raised are used for additional fundraising. So if you send them $10, about $5 of that will be used to send mailings to more people.
"Program expenses" receive 47% of the funds. Regarding that "program,"
Wikipedia states:
The public education portion of the solicitation consists of an
approximately 1/8 page list of "risk factors for breast cancer" on the
back side of the solicitation. Overall, 52.11% + 43.14% (95.25%) of all
donations go to either direct or indirect fundraising costs. The card
states that 3.81% of funds go directly to research program services (38
cents out of a $10.00 donation). Thus, of the $12,568,927 raised by
WCRI, $478,876.11 went directly to research. As a comparison, an NIH
grant awarded to a single Investigator for a specific research study
typically ranges from $25,000 to $250,000.
If you read the
comments at Charity Navigator, you will see that some people say they cash the check and donate the money to "real" charities. Or you can keep the money. But note this - your name
and address are on the check (with a scannable barcode), and...
Numerous complaints have been made by individuals who are receiving
dozens of letters soliciting funds and are unable to persuade the
charity to remove their names from the mailing list. The Center then sells those names to other charities, and people throughout the country
have complained of being inundated by requests for money that they can
not stop.
The choice is yours. My check went into the shredder.
Reposted from 2012, because after five years this organization is still sending out these checks, and the public continues to find this old post (over 10,000 views so far...) via Google. Perhaps it will be even easier to find if I make the date more recent.
Re-reposted from 2017, because people are still getting these checks in the mail.
Reposted again because I received a comment today that these checks are still being mailed (although the size of the checks has declined to $1.95). Also of note, when I went back to Charity Navigator to confirm the evaluation of this organization, I note
they have changed their name to the Walker Cancer Research Institute, and their evaluation places them as a
"Zero-Star Charity." They pay their top four employees over $450K from a revenue of about $2M.