The charities our team decided to analyze were The March of Dimes and the National Wheelchair Basketball Association. These choices were rather easy because of the proximity of The March of Dimes and the attention the NWBA has been gaining with the impending Invictus Games in Orlando, Florida. Our team also chose these charities to juxtapose a historic, national charity and a grass-roots level charity. Before I begin to analyze the charities and answer the prompted questions, I will provide a quick background of each charity. March of Dimes was founded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1938 to find a cure for Polio. After the Polio vaccine was created the mission of March of Dimes was broadened and focused on helping mothers and trying to improve the health of their babies. March of Dimes is a national organization and has a footprint in all 50 states. Fiscal 2014 they worked at a deficit, Expenses were ~$204 million, while Revenues were ~$196 million. March of Dimes relies on a network of over 3 million volunteers. .
The National Wheelchair Basketball Association was created after WWII in 1946 and the first national tournament was held in 1948. The charity currently has over 2,500 members and is heavily volunteer-centric since there are only 4 salaried employees. The mission of the charity is to provide individuals with physical disabilities the opportunity to play, learn, and compete in basketball. NWBA also worked at a deficit, Expenses were ~$1.4 million, while Revenues were ~$1.3 million. Our team advised donating the fictional $100k to NWBA because their overall Charity Navigator ratings were exemplary and the donation would make a bigger impact to their organization compared to March of Dimes.
1. Surprising Fact/Employment Choice.
The most surprising fact that I learned about the charities we analyzed was the poor financial standing of the March of Dimes. March of Dimes has quite the sterling reputation in our area so to see their ratings on Charity Navigator was eye-opening.
