Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Top $8 Million in Donations
For once a positive story in the world of Celeb fanaticism. Brad Pitt, and Angelina “The definition of sexy” Jolie, have been found to have donated over $8 Million to charity in the last year according to tax filings. Pitt, has also shown to have raised over $5 Million for his Make It Right Foundation.
That’s great and all, but now is time for a rant. That is Celebrity and Athlete Foundations. Yup…I am not in favor of them and now I am going to tell you why. Let’s suppose that there is an organization already established to research AIDS (There are a few) that have already set up an administration, a board, and all other aspects of a charitable organization. Now someone like…welll…Brad Pitt sets up an organization to also collect money for AIDS research. Let’s think about this a minute. There is already an organization that is not only staffed, but has the infrastructure to collect donations, but a celebrity or athlete sets one up anyways instead of just promoting the already existing charity.
Why would they do this? First of all, there are going to be more costs associated with the new organization that are already accounted for with the existing one. They will need to staff the foundation, set up the administrative duties, buy Duralee fabrics for decorative purchases of their buildings, and any other expenses they may incur. All the while eating into the donations that Average Joe made because they really like Brad Pitt. Instead of promoting an existing organization they start their own and eat into a much greater portion of donations to pay for a ton of unnecessary expenses. JUST PROMOTE THE EXISTING CHARITY.
So what is the motivation? I’m sure that many do it because they care. That’s great. Do some good deeds. On the other hand you have to believe that many of them do it not only for a nice pat on the back from society, but because of the many tax advantages such an organization offers them. I ask is this cause is so important, then why exactly are you going to eat into donations by setting up a completely new foundation? You don’t. You promote an existing one where the people running it are experienced in charity work already. Of course you won’t get nice plaques for your charitable work, and extra media coverage for this, so if your motivation is just tax write offs and recognition, then by all means waste as much of the hard working man’s money as you can on BS expenses because they don’t know any better.
*cough* sorry…just had to get that off my chest.
