Charities flunk NCIB standards

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1997:

NEW YORK––The National
Charities Information Bureau has
issued negative reports on
Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra
Club, and Project Cure, which
advertises itself as a cancer research
foundation that does not fund animal
experiments.
Defenders, the NCIB said,
“does not meet the standard calling
for the organization to spend at
least 60% of annual expenses for
program activities, nor the standard
calling for the organization to
insure that fundraising expenses, in
relation to fundraising results, are
reasonable over time.”

ANIMAL PEOPLE reported
in December 1995 that Defenders
apparently failed to meet the 60%
standard in fiscal 1994, but when
the NCIB did not publish a similar
finding, gave Defenders the benefit
of the doubt for fiscal 1995. As
NCIB now endorses our original
view, we’ll amend our 1996 report.
The Sierra Club flunked the
NCIB standards by having paid
board members, failing to adequately
describe activities in its
annual report, producing incompatible
budget and audit statements,
and, like Defenders, failing to
spend at least 60% of annual
expenses on programs, while not
achieving reasonably high return
from fundraising investment.
Project Cure flunked the NCIB
standards pertaining to board structure,
balance of fundraising and
program expenses, and spending
reasonably on fundraisings.
Project Cure, of Dothan,
Alabama, was among the charities
represented by the direct mailing
firm Watson and Hughey which
paid $2.4 million in 1991 in out-ofcourt
settlement of federal charges
pertaining to allegedly misleading
appeals. A co-defendent was the
Cancer Fund of America, of
Knoxville, Tennessee, also claiming
to fund no animal research.
Investigation indicated that neither
charity funded any research. Both
Project Cure and the Cancer Fund
have been recommended at least
since 1990 in lists of acceptable
biomedical research charities published
by the Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine,
American Anti-Vivisection Society,
and National Anti-Vivisection
Society.