Several years ago I donated to Locks of Love. They did send me a postcard when they received my hair. But looking back, I believe that Locks of Love has been deceitful with their message. They portray themselves to be an organization that gives away wigs to kids with leukemia. As the other posts suggest, this isn't exactly true.
The other thing that I think you have to consider, is that if they're telling you that they're selling "unusable" hair--it's entirely possible that they are selling usable hair. "Unusable" is a very subjective term that I'm sure they use at their own, undisclosed discretion. If you look at the wikipedia article for Locks of Love, it says that they only made 113 wigs in 2002, but got $150,000 from donated hair sold. In 2005 they got $352,401 from donated hair sold. Truth be told, I wish there was more transparency here so that I could see more recent number breakdowns, but you have to admit--there's a trend.
Also, as noted before they do not meet the Better Business Bureau standards for charitable accountability because they failed the following qualification:
"Accurately report the charity's expenses, including any joint cost allocations, in its financial statements. For example, audited or unaudited statements which inaccurately claim zero fund raising expenses or otherwise understate the amount a charity spends on fund raising, and/or overstate the amount it spends on programs will not meet this standard."
I'm certainly not trying to promote one of the other programs over this one, but I wish I would've been more aware of all of these facts earlier. I would not have donated to them.
My hair is long again and I'm looking at organizations to donate to; after finding all of this out, I would rather sell my own hair and donate the money to an organization that's honest with the people who support it than give it to Locks to Love again.
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Several years ago I donated to Locks of Love. They did send me a postcard when they received my hair. But looking back, I believe that Locks of Love has been deceitful with their message. They portray themselves to be an organization that gives away wigs to kids with leukemia. As the other posts suggest, this isn't exactly true.
The other thing that I think you have to consider, is that if they're telling you that they're selling "unusable" hair--it's entirely possible that they are selling usable hair. "Unusable" is a very subjective term that I'm sure they use at their own, undisclosed discretion. If you look at the wikipedia article for Locks of Love, it says that they only made 113 wigs in 2002, but got $150,000 from donated hair sold. In 2005 they got $352,401 from donated hair sold. Truth be told, I wish there was more transparency here so that I could see more recent number breakdowns, but you have to admit--there's a trend.
Also, as noted before they do not meet the Better Business Bureau standards for charitable accountability because they failed the following qualification:
"Accurately report the charity's expenses, including any joint cost allocations, in its financial statements. For example, audited or unaudited statements which inaccurately claim zero fund raising expenses or otherwise understate the amount a charity spends on fund raising, and/or overstate the amount it spends on programs will not meet this standard."
I'm certainly not trying to promote one of the other programs over this one, but I wish I would've been more aware of all of these facts earlier. I would not have donated to them.
My hair is long again and I'm looking at organizations to donate to; after finding all of this out, I would rather sell my own hair and donate the money to an organization that's honest with the people who support it than give it to Locks to Love again.
May 24, 2010 - 2:02amThis Comment
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