Scientists Stunned as Medical Non-Profit Group Abruptly Ends Research Grants (nature.com) 168
A major US non-profit group focused on improving child health has abruptly terminated US$3 million in research grants -- leaving nearly 40 scientists confused, angry and scrambling to secure new funding. From a report: On 24 July, 37 grant recipients received an e-mail from the March of Dimes Foundation in New York City informing them that their 3-year grants had been cut off, retroactively, starting on 30 June. Many of the researchers were only a year into their projects, and had had just enough time to hire and train staff, purchase supplies and generate preliminary results. Now, several say that they might need to lay off employees, euthanize lab animals and shelve their research projects if they cannot find other funding -- fast. The March of Dimes, which is supported largely by individual donations, made the decision to revoke the grants because of a budget shortfall, says Kelle Moley, the group's chief scientific officer. "I know this is harsh news," Moley says. "As a former grantee, this would be devastating to me as well." That is small consolation to many researchers whom Nature spoke to.
this is GOOD NEWS! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't the Susan Coleman Foundation, those people are evil. They don't get to own the color pink.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
*Susan G Komen Foundation, a for-profit group researching how to bilk the public out of more money and trademark the color pink. Sometimes, they talk about breast cancer, too.
Re: (Score:2)
That may in part be because (whether correctly or not, I don't know) people associate breast cancer with bad luck (i.e. mainly genetics which are out of the patient's control) and lung cancer with bad decisions (i.e. smoking).
Prostate... (Score:2)
Not to mention prostate cancer, that gets even less support, and kills more people.
Breast cancer researchers have actually BLOCKED prostate cancer researchers from sharing their data, because....
They are too top heavy (Score:2)
In 2014, out of every dollar they raised, $0.15 was actually passed on through grants and support to research.
85% is eaten up internally. They are bordering on a scam.
How about trimming the top level MOD? (Score:4, Insightful)
In this somewhat old post on how MOD spends money [paddockpost.com], it spent $96 million on salaries and benefits. If they really needed to save $3 million, why could that money not have come from there?
Salary and related expenses are 37% of every dollar MOD gets as a donation...
Re:How about trimming the top level MOD? (Score:5, Insightful)
Salary and related expenses are 37% of every dollar MOD gets as a donation...
In my opinion that is way too high operating expense to be considered non profit. I would personally clamp it to 15% max or you lose non-profit status. But mainly I feel this way because so many 'non profit charities' are pure scum, only in it to make money.
Re: (Score:3)
That would be high if it were true. Fortunately, it is not. Their actual 'salary and benefits' is 10.7% (the CEOs salary is 0.29%).
Re: (Score:3)
Plus 13% fundraising expenses. Overhead is 25% total based on current numbers.
On the plus side, they have reduced their operating overhead.
https://www.charitynavigator.o... [charitynavigator.org]
Re:How about trimming the top level MOD? (Score:4, Informative)
Right, but the OP didn't say 37% was spent in 'non program expenses', he said 37% was 'salary and benefits', which is pure BS.
Re: (Score:2)
What's wrong with fundraising expenses? Fundraising is how they make money in the first place. Like any other business - for-profit or otherwise - you need raise and maintain public awareness to make money.
According to the charity navigator site you linked to, MOD has a "Fundraising Efficiency" of $0.15. Per the attached description, that means they spend $0.15 for every dollar in donations they receive. If they take $1 in donations and spend it on fundraising efforts, which in turn generates $6.67 in addit
Re: (Score:2)
If they take $1 in donations and spend it on fundraising efforts, which in turn generates $6.67 in additional donations, that's a pretty damn good use of money.
No, it's an effective use of money. In order to determine whether it's a good use of money, you have to determine what percentage they actually spend helping people. I don't know what that percentage is, but I know it just got smaller.
Re: (Score:2)
> I don't know what that percentage is
If only there was some website linked several times in this story's comment section that had some kind of breakdown of their expenditures...
And I disagree; it really doesn't matter that much what percent is used to actually help people; If you multiply your money by 6X through fundraising that's 6X more money helping people regardless of the proportions...
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
If you multiply your money by 6X through fundraising that's 6X more money helping people regardless of the proportions...
That would only be true if there were only one charity in the world. That is not the case, so that is false.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I don't follow...
If they can turn my $1 donation into $6.67 of additional donations, that's exactly equivalent to me donating $6.67 and them spending nothing on fundraising.
But if they spend nothing on fundraising they might not have gotten my $1 in the first place.
How does the existence of other charities effect this calculation?
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
How does the existence of other charities effect this calculation?
Because people only have so much money to give to charities. If they give it to those guys, they won't give it to someone else, who may actually spend a larger percentage on charity rather than executive salaries. This is not even slightly complicated.
Re: (Score:2)
Well presumably you are giving to charity X because you want to support the specific mission/work that charity X does. Your scenario only applies to a specific case where two or more charities have significantly similar functions.
But even if that wasn't the case, I'd rather give my $1 to a charity that will spend it on fundraising and turn it into $6, than a charity that will spend it on their program goals and only have $1 to spend.
Nohow, you've added "executive salaries" into the calculus which has nothin
Re: (Score:2)
The relevant number for this discussion is that only 15% goes to supporting research.
Re: (Score:2)
> According to the google, at most 52% is spent on helping people.
Provide links of GTFO.
https://www.charitynavigator.o... [charitynavigator.org]
According to their tax filings, over 75% of their income goes towards their stated purpose.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
However, if they spend 100% of money received on helping people, they will receive less money because no one will have heard of them. Sending out envelopes asking for donations (whether or not a dime is included) will vanish. No web sites will exist to accept donations. They won't be able to hire anybody to collect the money and cash the checks. You essentially must spend more than $0 on fundraising efforts in order to get money in the first place. You could rely on an army of volunteers but you still
Re: (Score:2)
In my opinion that is way too high operating expense to be considered non profit. I would personally clamp it to 15% max or you lose non-profit status. But mainly I feel this way because so many 'non profit charities' are pure scum, only in it to make money.
The definition of a non profit is that there aren't any shareholders / owners who take a profit. But employees can still get whopping huge salaries. Just look at all the non profit hospitals whose administrators make millions and have corporate jets.
Re: (Score:3)
And politically, you get to act like you are doing something extra special. Plus most people don't know that some non-profits pay their executive staff fortunes so they get to set a noble perception that they are sacrificing their wage by avoiding the private sector.
Re:How about trimming the top level MOD? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not arguing if they deserve the wage. I'm talking about the politician spouses that talk the big talk about forgoing the private sector to work in the public sector because of how much they care.
I remember Michelle Obama talking about how she rejected private sector jobs to work in the public sector and how she did that because she cared about people more than money.
That said, she was making over 300 grand annually in the public sector.
https://www.factcheck.org/2009... [factcheck.org]
Re:How about trimming the top level MOD? (Score:4, Insightful)
Versus $500 grand in the private sector?
I remember way back in high school when dinosaurs roamed the earth, we had a local state legislators assistant give us a talk. When asked he told us the salary he made, and we thought it was huge (being naive high schoolers of course). Then he added that this was a significant pay cut from his older job, and it had most students rethinking things.
Which still leaves a question. If a rich guy takes a pay cut do we still consider him an asshole or hypocrite because he's still rich? How much of a paycut is necessary before we're allowed to say that this is a good guy? I also think it's very hypocritical that someone who gives no money to charity will accuse a billionaire who gives enormous amount of money to a charity of having ulterior motives.
I think a lot of it comes down to human nature, and thinking that anyone making more money than you must be an asshole.
Re: (Score:2)
Take a look at The College Board, you know ,the guys who basically sell you every standardized test in the world (SATs, ACTs, Iowa Test of Basic Skills, etc). Their problem has always been spending the money that comes in - yes, they are a non-profit - and inste
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? Do you any citation for that?
Re: (Score:1)
I'd clamp it to whatever the POTUS makes. Whatever the non-profit you're not a bigger shot than the POTUS. You think you're worth more that's fine, as long as contributions to your organization are no longer tax deductible.
Re: (Score:1)
clamp it to 15% max or you lose non-profit status.
Have you seen the beautiful all-glass corp-esque headquarters of the The Salvation Army in London [goo.gl]? It has a beautiful Thames riverside location, right on the path to the Millenium Bridge and faces the Tate Modern Museum.
I can't believe that would ever be supported by a 15% cap. That operating cost could be better spent so I like the idea of a cap (though I would add a sliding scale and caveats).
Re:How about trimming the top level MOD? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Basically what they're paying for with that ("I can feel a coin through the envelope") dime is a bit more of your attention. If you open the envelope and glance at the materials inside rather than just throwing it in the trash unopened, the dime worked and was probably well worth it.
Re: (Score:3)
I do like getting the postage stamps attached from various charities. It makes it easier to mail back the donation. It is more expensive than a business reply mail though, but since so many charities do this I suspect having an actual stamp results in more donations. Perhaps people feel more guilty having the stamp and feel every so slightly compelled to donate. But if these expenses do not result in higher donations you can be sure that the charities would stop doing it.
Re: (Score:3)
It costs MOD $0.15 to raise $1. So every one of those dimes sent out gets them 67 cents in return. It is only 'financially stupidest' if every other method of fundraising nets you more than 67 cents for every dime spent. What would all those superior methods be?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A dime seems a lot more than what it is because it's money. Lots of charities include something when mailing to ask for donations. Thinks such as a pen, a world map, a bunch of greeting cards are all probably more than a dime and certainly add more to the postage than a dime would.
I wonder if there's some lucky person who collects a bunch of dimes from the discarded mailings at the recycling depot or later on in the recycling process.
Re:How about trimming the top level MOD? (Score:5, Informative)
According to charitynavigtor, 75.5% of their money is spent on program, 10.7% is 'administrative', and 13.6% is on fundraising (it costs them $0.15 to raise $1).
You need to fix your numbers too (Score:1)
Ok, that's fine as far as a correction goes (I was just quoting the page I found).
However percentages mean very little when we are talking absolute numbers. They trimmed out $3 million of grants, how much money TOTAL is 10.7$ of the money they receive? It still seems like there would be a lot of admin overhead they could trim, before they cut programs.
Also of course, the numbers you are using are before they dropped $3 million of grants. The new administrative percentage is quite obviously higher than an
Re: (Score:3)
Would it kill you that much to read the charitynavigator site a bit?
Assuming the "Research and Medical Support" is what's been cut (since they cut research grants) then $3M in cuts is nearly 12% of that sector's budget. Is it *NOT* immediately obvious that money is completely liquid across the entire organization. For example, it can't be assumed that they can simply cut $3M from administration and transfer that cash to the research department.
It's also worth considering that they're looking at a ~$12M budg
Re: (Score:1)
Blah Blah Blah can't admit when you are wrong can you?
It's also worth considering that they're looking at a ~$12M budget shortfall overall, so the other functions are probably taking a cut as well.
Why probably? The article says nothing like that, only that the grants are getting cut. What on earth leads you to give them the benefit of the doubt?
Unlike you I did look to see if that was the case before I posted and could find no sign of it.
But regardless of the other divisions also taking a hit, my basic po
Re: (Score:2)
You could just do a little research on your own. The charitynavigator numbers are from 2016. They were already in trouble then. In 2017 (BEFORE THEY CUT GRANTS), they laid off a hundred of their people, and sold their headquarters to raise cash.
Re: (Score:2)
> Unlike you I did look to see if that was the case before I posted and could find no sign of it.
Well, you fuckin' failed didn't you?
I'd say stick to trolling but you're not very good at that either.
=Smidge=
Re:How about trimming the top level MOD? (Score:5, Interesting)
Charity Navigator rates the March of Dimes at 2 out of 5 stars, and 1 out of 5 on the financial scale. [charitynavigator.org]
Their program expenses, administrative expenses, fundraising expenses, and fundraising efficiency are all pretty good. But they basically ran out of money. Liability to assets should be 10% but it is 113%!!! I can't tell what they did wrong, other than paying their CEO a half a million dollars a year. That wouldn't be unreasonable if that CEO brought in millions of more dollars than a CEO who made $100k/year, but clearly something was mismanaged if it got to this point.
Charity Navigator (Score:1)
They have a a two star overall rating on Charity Navigator and a one star for financials. [charitynavigator.org]
Their efficiency is for every dollar they raise, they spend $0.15 to raise it. And after admin expenses, $0.75 actually goes for the programs.
Re: (Score:2)
Are they one of those groups that sends out unsolicited physical mail with a real nickel
Get with the times. Send Bitcoin.
Re: (Score:2)
Are they one of those groups that sends out unsolicited physical mail with a real nickel explaining how much a nickel can help? If so, I wonder how much they could save by simply not wasting their donations on that?
It's great that a nickel can do so much, but maybe instead of giving it to me you should keep it for yourselves?
They are more clever. They send a dime. I have actually donated to march of dimes but it annoyed me when they sent me a dime and tried to guilt trip me into sending the dime back to them.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't feel to see if there's a pen inside?
You can never have too many pens.
It's all about the Roosevelts (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a lot of dimes (Score:2)
Anyone else besides me remember the cardboard donation collectors at supermarkets when you were a kid? I remember putting a dime in at least a few times.
Even then it was amazing to think that anything could be accomplished with a collection of dimes.
Re: (Score:2)
and 4 out of 10 times went to line someone's pocket as salary and benefits, not to help anything. Even then most the MOD research grant money is a waste anyway and produces nothing of benefit.
Re: (Score:2)
That's absurdly high, March of Dimes grants for research have nothing like that kind of return. Space program has trillions of dollars in benefits, MOD grants not so much.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You are saying March of Dimes decision is related to Apple? Did Apple cut donations to March of Dimes?
Re: (Score:1)
What about crowdfunding? (Score:1)
This is not normal (Score:5, Interesting)
The abruptness suggests that March of Dimes staff is incompetent and couldn't see the shortfall coming, that some major funding source suddenly cut them off, or maybe some insider embezzled a bunch of money. In any case, this doesn't look like a typical, "Gee, we've been having some difficulties raising money" scenario.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
I'd be very careful using such a simplistic approach.
Wouldn't the best way of selecting a charity, if you wanted to maximize where your dollars are going to, is by looking at the organization's tax filings and see where the money actually goes?
Re: (Score:2)
No, but finding a local one and becoming personally involved is too much work for a lot of folks. Not sure on the work part, but yes, it is time consuming.... but if you want to be truly charitable...
Re:Why I don't give to secular "aid" organizations (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a giver who wants to help babies--the MOD's ostensible justification for existence--go find the most orthodox church in your area. You know, the one where they believe abortion is straight up murder.
I like it very much how modern day Christians take their notion of what is murder or not from Aristotle, the pagan philosopher who first stated souls are the form of the body, therefore fetuses have souls since conception, therefore abortion is murder, rather than from the Bible, which clearly states the soul enters the body when the person first breathes [biblegateway.com] and that abortion is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine to be paid to the would be father [biblegateway.com].
Being a pagan myself, I heartily approve of taking a pagan Philosopher's opinions more seriously than whatever is in the Biblical myths. But Aristotle wouldn't be my first choice. His ideas about the soul are very off. Plotinus and Proclus' are better. Be as it may, a paganized Christianity is better than a non-paganized one, and therefore kudos on ignoring what the Bible say on the matter, even though in this case I myself agree with the Bible! (y)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I like it very much how modern day Christians take their notion of what is murder or not from Aristotle
I like it very much when apparent atheistts try to speak for all Christians. In other words, you're making it up.
which clearly states the soul enters the body when the person first breathes
You're good at taking things out of context. Remember that the context of that verse is the creation of the first human being out of clay. Prior to life being breathed into it, the clay was not human. Clay has no soul, and thus the soul could ONLY enter it when it became human.
Every baby since that time has been different. A description of how the first human was created is not a description of
Re:Why I don't give to secular "aid" organizations (Score:4, Interesting)
I like it very much when apparent atheistts try to speak for all Christians. In other words, you're making it up.
Not at all. And I'm not an Atheist, I'm a pagan. :-)
You're good at taking things out of context.
No. The Hebrew word we translate as "soul" and "spirit" are "nephesh" for soul, and "ruash" and "neshamah" for spirit, the three of which mean "breathe". Those are the words used in the Old Testament. Similarly, the Greek words used in the New Testament that we translate as "soul" and "spirit" are "psuche" for soul, and "pnoe" and "pneuma" for spirit, the three of which also mean "breathe".
The meaning all thorough the Bible is that soul/spirit are connected to a breathing body. That's the criteria. And anything that isn't breathing has no soul. Including fetuses.
You stopped at the first verse of that group.
No, I didn't. Those verses refer to the death of the would-be mother and/or of the would-be father. The miscarriage caused by the assailant is punished by a fine. It's considered an aggression against the mother, and a loss of property against the father. Search any Biblical dictionary and you'll see this explained in excruciating details.
You agree with the misinterpretation you've created.
No, I agree with the traditional understanding of this topic in multiple cultures. Some take a more careful approach and suggest temperance when it comes to abortion, saying it's better to avoid it than to indulge in it, but very few believed mere conception entailed soul-body linking. In fact, even American evangelicals only began believing this during the 1970's. Before that it was considered by most as a specifically Catholic (and Orthodox) belief, not a proper, general Christian one.
And, guess what? Evangelicals were the correct ones in that debate. Were. Now they aren't anymore.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
No. The Hebrew word we translate as "soul" and "spirit" are "nephesh" for soul, and "ruash" and "neshamah" for spirit, the three of which mean "breathe".
Yes, the source of the first spirit (soul) was from a breath. That does not mean that the source of every other soul is from a breath taken by the baby. The word acknowledges where the first one came from, not requires that every following one come the same way.
No, I didn't. Those verses refer to the death of the would-be mother and/or of the would-be father.
Oh, cool. then murder is just "mischief" according to the Bible. Good to know.
In fact, even American evangelicals only began believing this during the 1970's.
Uhhh, no. I'm old enough to know better. The fact that it became a widely-discussed issue on the 70's doesn't mean that it wasn't believed to be killing before that. It t
Re: (Score:2)
The word acknowledges where the first one came from, not requires that every following one come the same way.
So, every time the Old Testament, either in the Hebrew original or in its Greek translation, and every time the New Testament in the Greek original, talk about someone's "breathing", they're being metaphorical, and actually meaning "this isn't really about breathing but we'll use the word anyway"?
Oh, cool. then murder is just "mischief" according to the Bible. Good to know.
That word is translated in other versions as "injury".
If you Google the passage you'll see there are interpretation that go with a reading that this passage means something akin to this: if an assailant hits the wo
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
(...) we've actually read their damned book and it's vile.
I don't actually think it's vile. It's very old, and full of very old allegories and metaphors that once properly understood are quite enlightening. The problem is more with the uninitiated believers who take things literally, or at most up to the first metaphorical level, and thus don't understand what they're reading. That's where most problems come from.
Re: (Score:2)
A multitude of scriptures mention God knowing someone while they were in the womb
So? A few mention God knowing someone before they were conceived, and last I checked most Christians don't believe in the soul existing before conception. It's called omniscience among those who consider the Biblical God to possess it.
Also, read my other answer in this subthread for more details.
Re: (Score:2)
their ideas about non violence, and charity and womens rights are straight up Christian ideas
Not quite, no. Those are all in Plato, extensively developed. In fact, his views about women right were so advanced that only now society is slowly getting to the point of reaching it, but still not quite there. Christianity brought a few additions to that basic framework, but by no means introduced it.
The rest of your answer is just pop pseudo-Nietzschean nonsense, so I won't dwell on it. Now, if you do know something of Nietzsche's actual thought, then there's something useful to be talked about on that f
Re: (Score:1)
Or you could look into GiveWell [wikipedia.org] which rates charities on how effectively they use donations to do good.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Fear of the Lord tends to sharpen the minds...
This is the type of simplistic thinking that makes people good targets for fraudsters. Take Utah [slashdot.org] for example. Big time fraud goes on there because the people believe someone in church in a suit would never defraud them. God is on their side.
I can almost guarantee you that the percentage that will go to poor moms and babies will be significantly higher than anything sent to the MOD.
I can almost guarantee that you pulled that out of your ass.
Re: Why I don't give to secular "aid" organization (Score:1)
dimes for some (Score:4, Informative)
Contract? (Score:1)
Surely scientists don accept grants like this without a contract for the full term pf the grant? So sue for breach of contract...
Re: (Score:2)
Anybody in the mood for a small wager? (Score:2)
I'm going to go 'way out on a limb here and bet that none of the top people at MoD have had to worry about getting laid off because of the "budget shortfall".
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like a tempest in teapot (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Dimes aren't marching. (Score:1)
Support a very christian ideal of helping babies inutero
Support science that is often used to kill or dehumanize those same babies thus alienating a large portion of your donar base.
Profit?
https://www.lifeissues.org/200... [lifeissues.org]
http://www.roseandherlily.com/... [roseandherlily.com]
Kind of makes you wonder why their donations are declining. Maybe they need to figure out a better way to appeal the the sympathy atheists naturally have to not yet human blobs of flesh.
Free Market Solution (Score:1)
Is there a website where researchers can post research projects and I can donate per project depending on what I think is important?
Scientist, like the rest of us,run after the money (Score:1)
Part of an Ongoing Trend (Score:2)
Sadly, this is just part of the ongoing effort to deprioritize science in America. Watch for more stories like this, if the media even cover them. The technological edge of the scientific revolution is moving overseas fast.
They Found Their Cure:Shut Down (Score:1)
The March of Dimes was a charitable foundation to find the cure for polio. The cure has been found. But you will never end a 'foundation' when there are paying positions and a powerful fundraising mechanism in force.
Shut it down. It was a success.
99% of medical research studies are bogus (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
pfft, you are assuming anything useful would have come from this. A cursory review of such grants reveals the answer is no.
Quit imagining that randomly throwing money at a problem solves anything.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Let me choose how to spend your money
Re: (Score:2)
they've been skimming the top 40% off of donations for decades, what's with your puny 37 grants?
Re: (Score:1)
You can't sell or reuse lab animals in medical research. Everybody wants clean fresh ones. These folks aren't testing shampoos on rabbits, they're testing drugs and metabolites and growth curves. The animals need to be at the right age and right treatments. Cutting funding means they cannot care for them correctly, and the whole collection is useless.
Think of them less like pets, and more like condoms. Second hand lab animals are toxic waste.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Why are they euthanizing the animals? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You want them to release mice into the environment?