evening thank you for joining us for Denver 7 News at six I'm Andrew heal and I'm Shannon Ogden glad you're with us tonight and new tonight the Colorado healing fund is looking at adjusting how much they take in in administrative fees and to give you some context here the Colorado healing fund is the state's main nonprofit making sure victims of the Club Q shooting and their families get the donations meant for them however questions were raised after people learned the fund currently takes 10 p
ercent of each donation for administrative fees and operational costs and in a statement to Denver seven the fund's board president tells us quote after hearing this weekend from survivors of past tragedies the organization is working on other ways to meet its operating costs that will include possibly eliminating the need to collect at administration fee on donations and with more donations happening around the holidays we decided to dig deeper into non-profit spending in Denver 7 CB cotton is
joining us live in studio tonight to begin our in-depth coverage so I want to say though these administrative fees are not uncommon for large non-profits right and Shannon they're not uncommon and you know especially for nonprof office who are taking in more than fifty thousand dollars a year I spoke with a legal team which works with non-profits daily and the team told me these admin fees sometimes exist because the IRS has really strict language on where donations can go every package is a lab
or of love Salsas cheese again milk and nourish his children in the Denver metro most of these kids we serve get fined in school right they get hot lunch they get breakfast they go home on Fridays without a real source of food for the weekend Bob Bell has operated his non-profit Food For Thought Denver since 2012 and and bagging each weekend meal has also taken work many people never see kind of it can be more complicated than you think it would be Bell's non-profit is strictly volunteer run he
has no building and uses minimal resources we obviously don't have a building we work under a bridge for God's sake but you know the as long as you play The Rules by the game the 501c3 we are as transparent as organization you're ever going to find the 501c3 rules are something Cara Lawrence knows as well I specialize in working with tax-exempt organizations throughout Colorado we reached out for her expertise as the Colorado healing fund faces scrutiny for taking 10 percent of each donation for
admin fees Lawrence says that's not uncommon once you're bringing in you know over 50 000 a year you really need to start having bookkeepers tax preparers and you know just spending money on some either staff or even Consultants or contractors she says some nonprofits also have admin roles because of IRS requirements one of them that a non-profit publish its 990 form another organizations that are putting out funds into the public or helping victims or helping other beneficiaries are required b
y the IRS to investigate and to make sure that the money is going to the appropriate people if concerns remain she recommends people use the Secretary of State's website or guidestar are before donating looking at the ratings and at their form 990s which are the IRS annual returns and really doing your homework on the organization Bell welcomes everyone to read up on his labor of love we know it's not the end-all it's a bag of food but if it helps them feel more normal act more normal integrate
more normally who knows Miracles can happen in Denver I'm C.B cotton Denver seven can be kind of tricky to decide how to donate your money and determine which Charities are reliable but one way to gauge how a non-profit is spending its money is by checking its financial ratios and before you actually tune out it really is fairly simple to get a glimpse at a non-profit spending by checking the Colorado Secretary of State's website I did exactly that for the Colorado healing fund and going deeper
tonight we're going to focus on this number that you see there 93 percent or 93 cents that is the Colorado healing funds efficiency ratio and in this case the healing funds ratio is 93 percent and in general that means 93 cents of every dollar raised through the fund is put towards program expenses those expenses and donations are then getting to the victims who need it most and the secretary State's office notes that a lower ratio does not always indicate that a non-profit is not spending its m
oney correctly now it could simply mean the nonprofit's just starting out it has more things to spend on like fundraising non-profits in larger cities also might have to deal with larger overhead office space that sort of things and salaries associated with the higher cost of living the Colorado healing fund isn't alone with having to put a portion of donated funds toward other costs many of you may have donated to Club Q victims through the crowdfunding website GoFundMe which also takes a porti
on out of money given through that site the only money that comes out of a donation is a 2.9 percent fee plus 30 cents per donation which are normal fees associated with the handling of debit and credit cards GoFundMe also told us their trust and safety team is constantly reviewing fundraisers especially those created in the wake of a large tragedy such as the club Q shooting and that team helps ensure those who set up a GoFundMe actually get the donated money to the people it's intended for and
the secretary of state does have a website set up for coloradans to check the background of a charity or non-profit to make sure it's legitimate you can find that by visiting the website at the bottom of your screen check the charity.com
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