KidsCan spending under spotlight

Mike McRoberts and Carly Flynn celebrating at the end of the 23-hour Big Night In telethon. Photo / Martin Sykes

Charities are being asked to be more transparent about where their fundraising goes, following the first Telethon in 15 years.

The weekend's Telethon raised nearly $2 million for the KidsCan Charitable Trust, but media commentator Russell Brown has questioned why $1.5 million of the $1.95m the trust raised in 2008 was spent on operating costs.

The trust, the official charity of the All Blacks, was formed four years ago and operates nationally. It aims to meet the basic physical needs of financially disadvantaged children.

Its accounts showed the trust raised about $1.3m through donations, grants and fundraising in the year to December 31, 2008, The Press reported.

Of that, $356,000 (about 28 per cent) was spent on its children's programmes Food for Kids, Shoes for Kids, Raincoats for Kids and Stand Tall.

The trust, which has six full-time staff and one part-timer, spent a total of $764,000 on wages, public relations, events and promotions and vehicles.

It was not just KidsCan, Brown said, but there was an "arms race" between charitable organisations to gather the fundraising dollar.

A great deal of money was generated but a relatively small amount made it to the charities in some cases, he said.

But KidsCan's founder and executive director Julie Helson said the accounts gave a misleading picture.

She said the charity was closer to a 70/30 split between programmes and running costs and was aiming for an 80/20 split.

A one size fits all for every charity model was flawed, she said.

KidsCan was on the ground delivering resources and programmes to 111 schools. It was also a young charity so the percentage of running costs was always higher in the beginning, she said.

James Austin, chief executive of the Fundraising Institute of New Zealand, told Radio New Zealand it was difficult to compare charities' costs as they varied a lot.

It would not be unusual to have fundraising costs of $300,000 and costs of between 30 and 50 per cent for fundraising were reasonable.

Some charities used outside promoters and they had little control over the promoters' costs, he said.

"There is a cost to fundraising, you can't ignore it, but it has got to be transparent. It's got to be upfront."

Mr Austin questioned the integrity of some telemarketing companies, although telemarketing shouldn't be knocked because of one or two "cowboys".

"There are some cowboys out there. The epilepsy question or issue is a scandal."

He was referring to Epilepsy New Zealand, which severed ties with the Epilepsy Foundation after it received just $70,000 or 2.8 per cent, of $2.8 million raised in the last four years.

The foundation says that doesn't show the full picture and Mr Austin did say 10 per cent went into a trust to build up an income.

He said the next step should see the Charities Commission publish pie charts outlining where charity fundraising went.

- NZPA