Charities that Actually Suck: Make-A-Wish Foundation

I'm sure you've seen one of these fantastic Make-A-Wish videos, one in which a terminally ill child gets to meet an idol of theirs in exchange for the right to continue being just as terminally ill. Most charities exist to serve one of two purposes- either to improve the life of a suffering people, or to raise awareness about an unnoticed problem in the hopes that public sentiment carries the solution to the problem. Rather than aim for one of those two goals, the Make-A-Wish foundation reminds you that there are terminally ill children that exist, and gives them one fun day in an otherwise terrible life. Seriously- a charity with 230 million dollars in assets exists without putting a single dollar towards research or any sort of solution hunt. It's the Ponzi scheme of charities- sponsored under the Disney Corporation, its outreach to attain celebrities and famous athletes to grant a wish is impossible to match. These famous people aren't the ones who are doing anything wrong- most make many of these types of visits without the publicity of the Make-A-Wish foundation.

However, whoever came up with the corporate design for this charity intended not to improve the welfare of the world, but rather the publicity of itself and its supporters. While at first I decided I hated the Make-A-Wish foundation solely because their efforts are produced and directed as if every wish were a Hollywood trailer, actually looking up the foundation just managed to make me feel stronger about this. This is because its financials and mission statement reveal what the foundation actually is- a really expensive feel-good publicity stunt.

As can be seen by this pie chart displayed on their front page, 16 percent of all money that enters the company goes towards the advent of more fundraising. Hidden in the program services portions of their expenses is a 25 million dollar "public support" expense (12%), which in actually just means more marketing and self-promotion. This means that for every twenty dollars you donate to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, roughly six dollars goes towards self-promotion, while the rest presumably goes to the 18 cameramen and 11 photographers watching a sick kid have a catch with Derek Jeter. Most notably, the company itself makes zero donations towards research or large-scale awareness programs.

This Calvin and Hobbes strip concludes this rant much better than I could ever.