TRENTON — A nonprofit to help needy people pay their utility bills and another to help buy supplies for cancer patients make the top and bottom of the latest list of most asked-about charities, the state Division of Consumer Affairs said today. NJ Shares, a Ewing-based group that provides money for energy bills when families fall on hard times, puts...
TRENTON — A nonprofit to help needy people pay their utility bills and another to help buy supplies for cancer patients make the top and bottom of the latest list of most asked-about charities, the state Division of Consumer Affairs said today.
NJ Shares, a Ewing-based group that provides money for energy bills when families fall on hard times, puts 98 percent of its cash toward its mission, with the remaining two percent going toward fundraising, management and other costs, according to Consumer Affairs.
On the flip side, Cancer Support Services, a Dearborn, Mich.-based charity that helps buy supplies for cancer patients, spent only 24 percent of its money on its mission. The bulk of its expenses, 69 percent, went to pay for fundraising costs, Consumer Affairs said.
"How a charity spends its money is possibly the single most important factor in determining whether that charity is worthy of a donation," Thomas Calcagni, director of Consumer Affairs, said in a news release. "By shedding light on how charities spend money, we are encouraging New Jersey’s consumers to ‘investigate before you donate.’”
The Division of Consumer Affairs periodically issues a list of charities that consumers are calling and asking questions about. The list issued today covers calls to the state charity hotline during May and June, according to the news release.
The full list is available here. For more information, residents can call the charity hotline at 973-504-6215.