The Ten-Percenters

Last Thursday night the Student Council took all the meaning out of an important Combined Charities ruling made in 1952. At that time the Council had set up certain criteria for organizations which were to receive its tacit endorsement by being listed on the solicitation card. Its ruling stipulated that charities, to be so listed, must be student oriented, must be partially dependent on student funds, and must spend no more than ten percent of their income for administrative expenses. Now, however, the Council has decided to permit exceptions to the latter specification--the ten percent rule--for some charities. Although this criterion has not been withdrawn from the books, the Council has vitiated its future effectiveness and repudiated the principle on which it was based.

The 1952 Council set up the 10 percent rule specifically to help those drives which, not operating large-scale national publicity drives, did not have the money for expensive staffs and campaigns. Now--if the exceptions are permitted--one organization which spends 60 percent of its intake for administrative expenses will again be listed on the cards. Nine percent of this group's income is used for staff traveling expenses alone; another nine percent pays for the printing and mailing necessary for its national program. Although the value and worth of this particular fund and the way in which it conducts its campaign are beyond question, it just does not tally with the original ruling's intentions.

It is undoubtedly true that the specific dollar where administrative expense ends and charity begins can often not be clearly defined. If the drive is to avoid the perennial student complaint that "most of the charity you give goes to pay for the staff's salaries," however, it must select a stopping point which is reasonable for most charities. The Combined Charities can truthfully counter that any arbitrary line will exclude many fine causes. Yet a line must be drawn somewhere, and setting up well-defined criteria to start with is the fairest and most unbiased way to do this.

The Council's decision in 1952, then, was well advised. The recent change repudiates a careful and wisely-determined criterion for Harvard charities.