Charities Deserve a Tax Break: Charities Can't Offer Donors The Same Tax Incentives As Political Parties -- So They End Up Paying for High-Priced Fundraising Talent

TheStar.com | News & Features | Sick Kids loses top-paid fundraisers.

I've been thinking a lot about this story ever since it hit the paper yesterday morning.

A lot of people have been talking about the poor return on investment that Sick Kids donors have been receiving lately -- less than 50 cents on the dollar on some projects, according to The Star's investigation.

That is a concern. I always factor in a charity's overhead when I'm making my donation decisions. But this points to a much bigger issue. Charities perform a lot of valuable work in our society -- work that would otherwise go undone or have to be funded by government. (Anyone want to place a bet on which way the coin-toss would go these days?) And they have to raise their own funds to carry out that work.

Competing for those very same donor dollars are political parties, who can offer donors much sweeter incentives to open their checkbooks. (And there are more donor perks to come in Ontario.)

If charities were competing for donor dollars on the same playing field as political parties, they wouldn't have to fork over all those dollars for high-priced fundraising talent, and donors would get a better return-on-investment on their donations.

It seems so obvious to me that it's in everybody's best interest to change our tax laws to level the playing field. Because if the charities can't raise the dollars they need to deliver their much-needed programs and services, our entire society will pay a very big price.

This really is a no-brainer.