You should pay me to help people...

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I just saw an online ad for a religious group here in my city, that says that they want to help people, like the homeless (since we have loads of them...) and they're a christian group, and they want you to send them your money. I really hate these kinds of pieces. Firstly, I know that a minute long Google + Youtube ad is not cheap, and the more it's shown off, the more money you have to put into it. This is where the money that you give them is going. They have a building downtown where they do their work, you're paying for that. They have loads of employees that work there full time, so you pay for that... In the end, the average amount of money that ends up going towards the people who they say they'll be helping is around 5-10% of what you give. Seeing that they're a religious company, then the majority of that money will be pushed towards those people being taught the religious side. The same goes with people doing missionary work in other countries. An American travels to Uganda to help out the poor people. They spend loads of money on flying out there and taking everything they want, then they get to the country, and build them a church. Why not build them a medical center or a school? Why base it completely around the religion? You may say, "At least their religion is pushing them to help these people out." But that's just wrong. Some of the best companies that do that are ones like Unicef or Operation Smile, which are completely religious-free. But the companies that give the most money to charity to help people are ones like Macy's and Safeway and Dow Chemical and Wal-Mart... not the religious groups. "Well, if the people are being shown god, then they're going to get better!" Thats not true. A good example of Alcoholics Anonymous shows this. They take alcoholics and put them through a 12 step program. Around 5 of those steps are completely religious, and tell people to give themselves to God, and admit that they're not in charge of themselves, but God is. This has about a 5% rate of effectiveness... which could come down to anything. I think even getting a cute pet, and wanting to care for it rather then drinking, has a better effective ratio then religion. Of course it's good to be helping others, no matter how you do it, but you should really be effective. If you want a homeless person to be happier, give them your spare change, or donate towards a company that is really helping them with their medical and mental needs. Don't trust the religious groups, because they say they're helping the people, but they're really just helping themselves.