No one ever said running a large non-profit organization was easy. Well, a recent article on one of the most popular websites on the Internet has some harsh criticism for the American Diabetes Association.
The premise of the article is to compare the performance of the ADA against the American Cancer Association and the American Heart Association, both of which are larger charities. How did the ADA do? Not so good.
Some sample criticisms are:
Lack of Transparency. In other words, where does the money go? There are general categories of expenditures, but overall, detail was considered to be lacking. This is a similar criticism leveled against the ADA by CharityNavigator.org, as we detailed last week.
Zero Measurable Focus on Prevention or Cure. Interestingly, there is little or no measurable goal of preventing diabetes or finding a cure. Compare the other two organizations and they can show over the last 10 years a measurable drop in deaths due to cancer and heart disease, amongst other attained measurable goals. Apparently, measuring success (or failure) at the ADA doesn’t exist.
No Free Diet and Exercise Programs. The article points out that there is no free exercise or diet program from the ADA. You get a teaser, but then have to pay for the details. As the author points out:
It’s a bit cheesy, by the way, to withhold key pieces of information and then offer them in fee-based products.
The ADA spent over a $145 million on programs in 2012. Yet, you get no free diet or exercise program.
In contrast, I spent $1,000 on hiring a CDE to do a sample one week diabetes friendly meal plan for people who sign up for our newsletter. Trust me, somewhere in that $145 million the ADA spends on programs they could probably find a little “scratch” to pull together some good free meal planning resources.
There is a treasure trove of information in the article that is well worth your time to read if you want more from your ADA. I highly recommend you check out the BlogCritics.org article.