My Nonprofit Reviews

Thank you for your support and for sharing your concerns about Doctors Without Borders' cost of fundraising. We value your feedback and want to address your concerns specifically and directly. Doctors Without Borders' executive staff and board of directors are highly conscious of the cost of fundraising and make every effort to keep that cost low. At $.13 to raise a dollar our cost of fundraising exceeds nonprofit industry standards, and is comparable to that of other humanitarian aid organizations. Please note that the figures that you are referring to are from our 2009 audited financials. That year, as the economy dipped, our fundraising team had to make significant efforts to raise the revenue needed to support our programs, as donor response declined from prior years. With those additional efforts our cost of fundraising slightly increased. In our 2010 financials, you will see that our cost to raise a dollar has decreased to less than $.10, this is because of the significant amounts of support we received in response to the earthquake in Haiti. External factors influence our cost to raise a dollar from year to year. In order to help bring down the cost of fundraising the best thing that donors can do is to become a Field Partner (monthly donor). You will receive less mail, which means less cost, and you provide a guarantee of regular, predictable, and unrestricted funds for our projects. You can find more information regarding our Field Partner program on our website: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/monthly.cfm? We appreciate your concern and hope this sheds a bit more light on the question of our cost of fundraising. If you would like to discuss this further please contact our Donor Services department at Donations@newyork.msf.org.