I feel we should almost come to your ‘rescue’ as you seem to be under attack here for what was – and IS – a wonderfully generous donation you made to your charity.

Let me explain to your readers who we are at Cars 4 Causes®. First of all, as you have seen, we make our organization as transparent as possible while maintaining the required confidentiality of charities and donors. And we’re highly respected in the non-profit arena because of it. You certainly did do your homework, and thanks again for choosing us as a trusted and reputable charity in the car donation arena.

We’re quite open about our founders and our current executives (see our website-about us, our mission and our blog), as well as about our contract with my ex-son-in-law. Cars 4 Causes® was begun as a family concern; we all cared and put our individual talents to work for philanthropic goals. Divorce doesn’t turn ex’s into ogres. Tim Finnigan’s expertise in cars and all things automotive makes him and his company a valuable asset to Cars 4 Causes®.

Cars 4 Causes® does contract with him and his company, Charity Development, and this is not only NOT a secret as your detractors would have you believe, but it is a contract we put out to bid publicly every 5 years. It’s been reviewed by the IRS and by the attorney general. His company is the cheapest and also the most trustworthy company we know of. In fact, you could say he’s a crusader for improved guidelines and transparency within the car donation industry, one of those charity thought-leaders who sets the bar high for the rest of the industry. Because of our relationship with Charity Development, we can proudly say that we have one of the highest returns per donated vehicle in the industry (if not the highest).

This makes some car donation businesses uncomfortable, as he encourages all donors to do homework such as you did – know who you are donating your car to and how much money ends up in the hands of your charity.

You certainly are under attack here. I’d call it cross-fire between those old-school car dealers who want to reap big profits from donations and those of us who feel honored to be part of a cause that helps people who want to donate find a charitable way of doing so.

You’re right on your evaluation of the dollars involved, too. As with most charities, our salaries are not comparable to what our staff and executives could earn in the for-profit world. You can peruse our IRS 990 and see how fair and equitable Cars for Causes® is. Parse the numbers any way you like: Cars 4 Causes® is above-board, making sure car donations bring in the most for their charities as possible, and that the lion’s share of those dollars end up benefiting the charity.

Thank you for being a leader and a voice in philanthropy.

Pat Jessup
Executive Director
Cars 4 Causes

And by the way, I’ve never been to business school but I’m pretty sure that $1.5 million in revenue doesn’t equal $1.5 million in profits. You’re flying off the handle with anger but using the wrong numbers to be outraged about.

I’ll ask the folks at Cars4Causes to respond. It’s been intriguing to me how upset people have been about this post. If it turns out I’m wrong about Cars4Causes, I’ll be sure to change this post accordingly.

In the meantime, Bruce, I would reiterate that I have done my homework but have come to a different conclusion than you. See my comments to your comrade Mark from January 23rd. I’m happy to disagree with you philosophically about whether anyone should make a buck through car donations (heck, do a Google search on the Dan Pallotta book “Uncharitable” to see the debate raging on this very topic), but I’m a little tired of being accused of ignorance and naivete, so forgive me if this response seems a bit short-tempered.