[Omah]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Site

The Hunger Site is not a charity; it is a for-profit corporation which donates the revenue from its advertising banner to selected charities.

The Hunger Site was started by John Breen, a computer programmer from Bloomington, Indiana, in June 1999. Originally a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, the site became popular rapidly. "[T]he response was soon so overwhelming that he spent most of his time administering the site even though he received no income, loans, grants, or donations to compensate him for his time and effort or pay his expenses." Faced with increasing costs, Breen sold the site to GreaterGood, "a Seattle-based online shopping mall that gave part of its sales to charity" for an undisclosed amount in February 2000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/11/us...anted=2&src=pm

December 11, 2000

Since then, the Hunger Site has become more obviously commercial, offering extra donations if visitors buy holiday wreaths or Hunger Site hats, or click the link to Amazon.com and make a first-time purchase there.

GreaterGood, which has created five more click-to-donate sites since buying the Hunger Site, takes a 25 percent cut of the donations to cover its costs, and has recently been having cash-flow problems.

While the Hunger Site still draws far more traffic than the other sites, it has suffered since GreaterGood took over. Early in November, the company decided that the United Nations food program should not be the only beneficiary, and added two other food programs, Second Harvest and Mercy Corps. On Nov. 23, the United Nations food program ended its relationship with the Hunger Site, announcing that it had received only $200,000 of the $371,675 the site raised between June and September.

''When John Breen started the Hunger Site, the agreement was that when someone clicked, the sponsor would send the money directly to the food program,'' Ms. Spring said. ''After the GreaterGood became the intermediary, we felt the money was coming in too slowly. We're deeply grateful that the Hunger Site created more awareness of our work, but as a matter of integrity, and for the future of this kind of site, we thought it was important to let the public know that the money wasn't coming as quickly as it was supposed to.''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Site

In July 2001, following the dot-com bubble crash, GreaterGood ceased operations after losing $26 million dollars in venture capital.

CharityUSA owns and operates various click-to-donate-sites, including The Hunger Site. CharityUSA currently claims that 100% of the website's sponsor advertising revenue is paid to the aforementioned non-profit partners. The Commercial Fundraiser Profile Report page on the Secretary of State's web page for the state of Washington calculates the percentage that CharityUSA returns to its charity clients as being 17% of the company's total revenue (labeled as contributions, although the company's explanation on the same page defines this as mix of contributions and sale of products).

So, not actually a con or scam, but much of the revenue is not reaching charities but lining the pockets of company executives and bolstering company profits .....