Sixy-Five Percent of Funds Raised by ADA Go to Fundraisers NOT ADA

The next time you are tempted to contribute to the American Diabetes Association, consider this: The LA Times reported this July that only 35.1% of the money donated to the American Diabetes Association in California actually went to the ADA. The rest went to the for-profit fundraisers it hired.

American Diabetes Association rated in the LA Times Charity Database HERE

Here's who got the money that was raised in the name of the ADA:

List of Fund Raisers that ADA Money Went to - LA Times Charity Database

I've run into those ADA fundraisers. Last year they phoned me every night for a month. Since they are keeping 65% of every dollar they raise, their enthusiasm is understandable.

What is NOT understandable is why the American Diabetes Association is willing to lend its name to such predatory fundraising practices. Well conducted health charities in California keep 80% or more of every dollar raised in their name. Here is a list of other health charities in California and how much of the funds raised in their names actually get to them:

Other Health Charities Listed in the LA Times Charity Fund Raising Database

Nationally the news about the ADA's efficiency is not much better. The Charity Navigator web site which rates charities nationwide gives the ADA two stars and presents

this page of information about how the ADA uses its money.

Note that the ADA gets the lowest possible rating, one star, for "Organizational Efficiency" or how it spends its money.

The ADA gets $213 million dollars a year of which $7,678,945 is spent on "administrative expenses." That translated into English means "Salaries for top ADA executives.".

The Charity Navigator site calculates the "fundraising efficiency" of an organization which is how much money it spends to raise a dollar. They report that the ADA spends $.26 to raise a buck. In contrast JDRF spends $.09.

And this doesn't even get into the issue of what it is that the ADA does with the money it spends on programs. As readers of this blog know very well, much of the ADA's spending goes to promote the agendas of the drug companies that feed it millions.

The ADA has campaigned for a generation against telling people with diabetes that lowering carbohydrate intake can lower blood sugar. They have fought against lowering the recommended blood sugar targets for people with diabetes long after the American Association of Clinical Endocrinlogists lowered theirs.

The ADA continues to tell people with diabetes that it is a "myth" that people with diabetes should cut back on starch and sugar. They continue to promote high carbohydrate/low fat diets that make blood sugar control impossible and force people with Type 2 diabetes to rely on expensive, largely ineffective, dangerous oral drugs.

The ADA continues to tell people with Type 1 diabetes that it is dangerous to shoot for blood sugar targets lower than 180 mg/dl (10 mmol/L) two hours after eating.

And the ADA continues to be the authority that doctors turn to for guidance in how to treat their patients with diabetes--which is one reason why so many of them diagnose patients late, promote diets that raise blood sugar, and accept dangerously high A1cs as "good control."

The ADA is run by very well paid professional charity executives who do not have diabetes. These are people who have never tested their blood sugar after eating a high carb meal, people who have never suffered from neuropathy caused by poor medical advice, people who are not going to go blind from the advice they dish out. They have close ties to the drug companies who dominate their agendas. They have no interest in hearing from or catering to the needs to those of us who have diabetes even though they raise those hundreds of millions of dollars in our name every year.

It's time for this to stop. Let your friends and family know these facts about the ADA's shockingly bad rating as a charity so they aren't tempted to enrich for-profit fundraising companies in the mistaken belief that their money would be going to help cure your diabetes.

Every time I see an obituary in the newspaper where the bereaved family asks contributions in memory of their loved one be sent to the ADA I marvel at the con job the ADA has done on the American public.

Let's bring it to an end!