First of all, Hi! This is my first post on this forum after having it recommended to me by John Reese in his IMA course. I'm quite an active member on the warriorforums and I'm looking forward to meet some new people! Anyways, I was thinking of doing charitable work by starting a help organization. The plan is to do this by DM (direct mail). The question is, how much of the donations can I keep as salary for my work? Lets say for instance that in the mailpiece I never say "Every penny that you donate will go straight to the cause", but instead I just say "Help us by donating, and we will help the cause in return" or something like that. What are your thoughts? To your knowledge: My plan was to split the donations 50/50. And this is of course only of the profits, after overhead (which will be at least 50 percent in itself). So basicly, if I get 100,000 USD, 50,000 will pay for overhead, 25,000 to the cause and 25,000 to me. Is that illegal or is that OK? (Morality: I take the risk with my own money, I spend countless hours writing a mailpiece and actually collects money for a good cause that wouldn't have been if I hadn't taken the initiative. I should be payed for my work. The contributors are happy because they feel like they did something good. The cause gets money, I get money and the donators feel good about themselves. Everybody wins.)
I should clarify i have no experience in this field whatsoever. But i just wanted to comment on a few things. I like the fact that you your idea is about helping people, but when looking at the numbers, it sounds like a massive risk on your behalf. Like if the amount you expect vs the amount you receive is significantly lower, then well you might be in for alot of debt and or just 100% of everything taken would go for overheads. I dunno, just sounds like your going to do alot of hard work and alot of risk. In your example,you mentioned "100k" with only 25k going to you and 25k going to the charity... I know that was just an example, but have you done any research as to what you can realistically expect? Just my thoughts - Wouldnt it be better to work at a full time job, not sure what average wage of americans is, but isnt it 80k-100k? Just depending on what your worth, it might be better to work full time, and you can still give 50% to charity. Based on your example of 100k, with "25k" going to charity, working at a job of 50k, or higher, giving half to charity would be a better option, with less work, less stress and less risk.
There are a myriad of potential legal issues that arise with a plan such as the one you suggest. I would recommend you do some searching for more information specific to where you live and the laws that would apply, but you can read here for a starting point: http://www.idealist.org/info/Nonprofits/Dev3
Overhead goes to those paying the bills - you. Salary goes to - you again. So .75 of every $1 raised is already going to - you. Unless you are the charitable cause, I'd say your plan needs to be reworked.
I wonder if he will start one of those vet charities.... The vets get nothing; The charity gets everything.... seems like I heard something like this on CNN not to long back, and I think they are still taking in millions of $$$$....