One note: Charities have realized that while maybe a larger proportion of the less wealthy want to support charities, the rich folk can afford to support charities. it is more efficient to get fewer rich people and charge them more (they write it off anyway) than to get more less wealthy people ... sometimes there is a break-even point where it is not possible to raise enough to pay for the event by trying to get more people at a lower price, but if they get far fewer, far wealthier people they can actually cover costs and give some back to the charity.

second Note: as berner points out, a lot of charities see themselves as the primary recipient of charity. it is hard to run a major charity part-time, so most serious charities are full-time major corporations, so yes, the people who work there need to get paychecks sufficient to support themselves. However, some people play the "Corporate officer" game in the non-profit instead of the for-profit world, looking for the biggest salaries, the biggest perks, the golden parachute retirement package ... Sucks, but that's people.

Actually, one-third isn't too inefficient. Consider if a for-profit corporation could raise 33 percent profits---that would be amazing. A non-profit still has to have offices, office equipment, staff, health care, lawyers on call ... everything a for-profit corporation needs. I know a lot of people think everyone working for a charity should be a volunteer, but big things don't get done by housewives donating a few hours in their spare time each week. And I know some people think people working for non-profits should be poor and horribly underpaid ... but that makes it impossible to get people to work for non-profits.

And the fact is, a lot of non-profits do a lot of good, even if 2/3 of what they raise goes to expenses. The question is more, what are those expenses? Lear jets and Rolls-Royces? Of sensible salaries to keep competent people in place. Having good people on board maximizes the income and thus the volume of the funds actually doing something good. Having greedy people on board ... makes me sick.

I have worked for a lot of non-profits. The good ones, every person knows that every dollar spent is a gift meant to help others, and spends every penny knowing that it is other people's money. The bad ones, the officers think they have "earned" the money and "deserve" high salaries and fat perks because they are such corporate geniuses.