Evening star., 1928-12-02

Der organizations. Some of the FORE
most business and professional men In
the city are active In the campaigns.
Prominent bonkers constitute a ma
jority of the budget committee and
they go over the estimates submitted
at the start of each campaign with all
the care that they would expend on a
business loan The result of this is
that every organization Is forced to
keep clean books and cannot hope to
get more than the requirements of its
service call for. Each group must live
within its budget, and If the Welfare
amount then the member organizations
are cut down accordingly.
Throughout the year checks are
mailed to each organization by the
Welfare Federation monthly, figured on
a quarterly basis. This gives the
member organization better chance
to keep its books straight, since 1t
knows exactly how much deficit 1t can
incur during the month over and above
its income from other sources.
When the community chest plan
was started In Philadelphia there was
some criticism on the ground that it
might be a device of the wealthier
citizens who had been contributing lib
orally to certain organizations in the
past to throw of this burden on to
general community. This has been
found to be without foundation. The
man S.. Kingsley, executive secretary
Of the Welfare Federation, are contrib
uting more than before, and the one
result has been to obtain additional
contributions from persons who gave
nothing in the past. .s-
Like every great city, Philadelphia
has many poor and helpless. The eX-
tent Of the work is Stupendous. Hos
pitalS which are members of the fedora
ton, for instance, dealt with more than
100000 emergency cases last year. The
thirty-one children's agencies contrib
uted, in one way or another, to the
care Of more than 10000 children.
Assistance was given to nearly 5000
needy families. A total of 261 ,211
nights lodgings were provided for home
less persons. The thirty settlement and
character building activities had en-
rollment during the year Of 10000 and
129,083 days outing were provided for
$4,000 persons.
Result This Year.
Encouraged by the success of the
community chest plan last year the
budgets were not pared SO carefully this
year, with the result that the sub
scriptions fell trifie from the amount
asked. This probably will neceSsitate
pro rata cut from the amounts
asked for different organizations. Once
drive is ended it Is not revived. The
directors feel that one of the great
benefits Of such plan is to enable
contributors to feel that they can make
contributions
lump and not be concerned about them
for the rest of the year. They then
can devote their attention to their
private charities.
The federation is primarily an organ
ization for collecting funds. But in
passing upon its membership it is able
to prevent much duplication of endeavor
and to curb such agencies as are con-
tinually arising which under the guise
of charity either are downright frauds
or which are so inefficient that money
given to them is largely wasted in over
head No agency is admitted unless 1t
is run on a business basis and can
show that 1t serves a real need in the
community.
The total amount required or the
operating expenses of the federation it
self last year was only 4.99 per cent OF
the amount collected. This is in con-
trast to from so to 60 per cent which
many of the separate organizations were
paying in overhead and in percentages
to the collectors.
Added to its other functions the fed
Grafton directs specific surveys Of the
needs of the city, such as hospitaliza-
ton. In this way the need for new
agencies is shown and duplication is
fprevented.