Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Donations


As I have blogged about before I belong to a local charity organization, the Kiwanis Club. I have been a member for about twelve years, even president twice. It is very rewarding to see the results of some of the work that we do. We are often approached by other different charity groups for help with their work. Before we decide to donate to these groups we always do research to see just where our money is going.

As a club we run about a eleven to twelve percent administration cost for the building and other necessities associated with the organization. We take no salaries at all, not even our officers. We do this because we want to. Other organizations are not as honorable. I recently found out the American Red Cross is one of those organizations. The president and CEO of the Red Cross takes a 951,000 dollar salary. This is non-profit? The president of the United Way accepted a salary of 675,000 to run their charity organization. Another example is Unicef. The CEO of Unicef took a salary of 1.9 million dollars and a Rolls Royce for their work in this charity organization. This results in less than five cents of every dollar donated goes to the charity that people are giving to. This is terrible. As a fellow non-profit we refuse to help organizations that just pad their own pockets instead of helping their community.

Before you donate be sure to look into their record. It is all available as public record. Organizations that are truly non-profit include the Salvation Army. Their commander received only 13,000 for running this two billion dollar organization. Your local VFW, American Legion and Disabled American Veterans are also part of the honorable charity groups. In fact the commanders of these three groups take absolutely zero salaries to run these non-profits.

Choose your non-profits wisely and don’t just give your money to these groups that are just helping themselves. A true non-profit should make enough to cover their legitimate expenses and the rest goes back to the community. The community is the group that we are all trying to help. It makes me an Angry Nice Guy to think that people would take advantage of the public’s desire to help others.

 

 

 
                         Kiwanis International logo
 
 

 

 

Thank you for reading my blog, come again.

Choose wisely, it will go farther.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Health Insurance, Or The Lack Of

Ok, I’m going to complain about the lack of health insurance some more, only because it affects me so much. My current employer that bought the business almost three years ago did not deem it was important for his 50+ year old family man to retain the health insurance instated by the previous owner. I hurt my back in March, which would have been avoided it I could have gone to a doctor and had my pain analyzed. Out of work for a month, on workman’s comp, went back for a month on four hour days, now I am on six hour days. Wonderful. All covered by WC which I am grateful for. I have had carpel tunnel in my left hand for over a year. I wear a brace at night and it alleviates the problem so I suck it up and keep on. Now I am getting it in my other hand. That means another brace. If I had the insurance I could go get the operation in a day and be set for the rest of my life, but no. My wife is experiencing problems with her leg now and needs to have her knee worked on, but no. She is also getting an allergic reaction to something around our property but we cannot figure it out.

All of these things and more could be taken care of with a simple health plan. Luckily we have a Healthy Kids plan for out children so they are taken care of. At what point does my health seem important to this idiot? When it affects his business I suppose.

Our best friend passed away basically because he did not have health insurance. I never thought I would have to worry about succumbing to the same fate.

 


                                                                         

 

Please pardon my rant. But, I will probably do it again! Please come back and be sure to click on one of these fine ads.