Slightly unusual request.

[campion7.livejournal.com]

Hello all--

I'm doing a bit of research and I need to know something.

Are there any places in the Boston area where you can donate hair for wigs for either cancer victims or alopecia (sp?) victims?

Comments

Re: tl;dr

[komos.livejournal.com]

The "didn't read" part is clear. It's a hallmark of your entire interaction about this organization.

Shame you didn't decide that it wasn't worth your time before spamming three communities with bad research.

[komos.livejournal.com]

It's bad research to begin with a bunch of sour grapes anecdotes from an lj comm and then attempt to argue against a demonstrably favorable rating by citing (and poorly at that) a five year old report by an organization that has since rubber stamped the charity.

Sarcasm entered the conversation only once it was clear that you were content to rest on exaggeration and conjecture to support your initial contention in spite of any evidence that refuted it.

Re: Information from the then-president of Charity Navigator

[komos.livejournal.com]

Let's look at these critically, ok?

You have presented four blog articles centered around a NYT article about the charity, which is primarily examining the fate of hair donated to LoL. This article states:
As much as 80 percent of the hair donated [...] is unusable for its wigs, the group says. Many people are unaware of the hair donation guidelines and send in hair that is gray, wet or moldy, too short, or too processed, some of which is immediately thrown away.

Trent stamp writes of the article:
80% of the hair that is donated to the popular charity, Locks of Love, is "immediately thrown out" due to it being unusable for wig making. And the majority of what actually makes the cut (sorry) does "not go to the gravely ill, but is sold to help pay for charities’ organizational costs.”

I trust you can see the difference? Stamp, who elsewhere notes, "I think they're a good group (http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=9285) and brilliant marketers" (citing the 4 of 4 star rating given by his own organization), here plays fast and loose with the facts he uses to question the program. There's a clear difference between noting that the majority of the mountains of hair received by the charity do not make it into wigs and misquoting the cited article to make it appear that that the vast majority of donated hair is being "thrown away" as opposed to being sold to support the program and fund related research.

Just so we're clear, the hair donations are a marketing gimmick that are calculated to raise awareness of the charity and otherwise leave a warm fuzzy feeling for those people who lack the means or inclination to make a financial contribution. I get that. The charity uses as much as it can for its hairpieces, sells as much of the rest as is possible, and tosses rotting, damaged, or otherwise unusable hair. This is is exactly the same model used by the other charities that do this kind of work (again from the NYT article):

In fact, all three of the children’s charities sell excess hair — in particular, the short and the gray — to commercial wig makers to defray costs.

Where does the money go? The article again:

According to its tax returns, Locks of Love made $1.9 million from hair sales from 2001 to 2006, and took in another $3.4 million in donations. Besides paying for wigs, the money goes for overhead and other costs, including grants for alopecia research.

$1.9 million in hair sales? Does that number suggest to you that 80% of the roughly 36,400 donations they receive annually is thrown away? That's approximately $52 (full disclosure: I ran numbers for a single year in the earlier edit) for each remaining ponytail, and that assumes they're not making ANY hairpieces.

What this string of blog articles pushes is a non-issue in terms of the financial viability and transparency of the organization. Granted, the LoL director overreacted in attributing the statements made by Stamp to the NYT, but there's nothing here to suggest that the charity is not operating entirely above board. Again, Stamp himself acknowledges that they are a good organization. We're back to discussing the allegation that donated hair is unlikely to find it's way onto a child's head, but keep in mind that a) the organization is not attempting to hide this in any way, and b) the fate of the donated hair is no different the other two major charities that do this work.

So sure, spread awareness that financial contribution is probably preferable to shearing your lovely mane, but the claim that the charity is a "scam" is entirely unsupported.