Posted: | February 22, 2019 11:26 AM |
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From: | Representative Anthony M. DeLuca |
To: | All House members |
Subject: | Requiring Charitable Solicitors to Disclose How Much Collected Goes to Actual Cause |
Charitable giving exceeded $400 billion dollars for the first time in 2017. We are a generous people, and charities play an indispensable part in providing aid to people across the state and country. Unfortunately, there are groups soliciting that are charitable in name only. The donations they receive are diverted to the pockets of professional solicitors and not to the cause they claim to represent. The end result is people unwittingly donating millions to these professional salespeople. This is wrong and we should take steps to prevent it. The Tampa Bay Times recently published statistics on the ten worst “charities” and the findings are startling. For example:
To counteract this abuse, we can require the caller to disclose how much of the money they collect goes to their actual cause. By amending the Solicitation of Funds for Charitable Purposes Act we can simply add this to a list of existing disclosure requirements. Legitimate charities will be comfortable relaying this number while the sham charities will not. In the end our constituents will be protected and feel more confident when they give. We owe it to Pennsylvanians to arm them with this information before they commit their hard earned money to a charity that exists only for profit. Please join me in this effort. Thanks. |
Introduced as HB769