The Halberg Foundation, a charity with a truly hallowed name in this country, clearly needs to rethink the way it is trying to help disabled children play sport. Its problems, as Dylan Cleaver reports today, go deeper than the fact that less than $1 in $10 donated to the foundation goes to disabled children.
That is an embarrassment faced to a greater or lesser degree by most fundraising organisations. It takes a great deal of money to employ people to raise money and deliver services. Commercial operations are doing well if their income exceeds their costs by more than 10 per cent and charities are no different.
They might not exist for profit but they are not staffed by unpaid volunteers. They need to pay competitive rates for competence and leadership. Of the $2.5 million donated to the Halberg Disability Sports Foundation in the latest year, just on half, $1.2m, was paid to staff.
Most of the rest must have gone in running fundraisers such as the annual Halberg Awards dinner, though they say it runs on "a shoestring", for only $197,898 went to disabled individuals or clubs.
It costs a lot to make a little. But as Cleaver reports, the little that is distributed is not going to the right places, according to a support group, Parents of Young Disabled Athletes.
