AR-News: (US IN) A lion's share of the proceeds

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

full story:

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/8134929.htm Professional 
fund-raisers take a percentage of the funds raised for charities.

By Linda Lipp

of The News-Sentinel

Professional fund-raisers apparently still love Indiana, despite a tough 
state do-not-call list that now includes nearly 60 percent of Indiana's 
residential phone lines. 

Indiana's no-call law covers business solicitations and calls from charities 
that use professional telemarketers, but exempts charities that use their own 
volunteers and/or employees. 

One of the toughest do-not-call laws in the United States, the list 
administered by the Indiana attorney general went into effect Jan. 1, 2002. 

Since then, the attorney general's office has logged more than 6,000 
complaints about violations of the law from consumers. It has reached voluntary 
compliance agreements with 139 companies accused of violating the rule. Of those, 
124 also paid fines that, so far, total $351,000. 

Professional fund-raisers also are required to register their Indiana 
telemarketing campaigns with the state. Two years ago, when Attorney General Steve 
Carter first published the list on his Web site, 
www.in.gov/attorneygeneral/consumer/charityfundraisers.htm, it contained 350 active campaigns. 

The newest list, effective Jan. 1, contains 331 active campaigns -- very 
nearly the same number. (see chart, Pages 8-9B) 

"Right now, it just narrows down who they can call," said Summer Burgin, a 
spokeswoman for Carter's office. 

Professional telemarketers still have a million Hoosier residential lines 
they legitimately can call, as well as business phone numbers, which are not part 
of the no-call program. 

And those calls can be quite lucrative for the telemarketing firms. Fifty of 
the current Indiana campaigns guarantee just 1 percent to the charity, with 
the professional fund-raiser claiming the remainder. 

That's actually better than the 2002 list, on which 100 campaigns promised 
just 1 percent to the charity. 

Although state law says the donations split should represent a good faith 
estimate of the final breakdown, "some choose to go to the end of the spectrum," 
Burgin said. That's because some professional fund-raisers who register 
campaigns with the state don't want to be held to a higher number should costs 
exceed their expectations. 

One current campaign, conducted by professional telemarketer Telefund Inc. on 
behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights 
organization, lists a negative 8 percent share to the nonprofit. 

In other words, Telefund keeps 100 percent of what it raises and PETA pays 
them an additional 8 percent on top of that. 
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