Analytical Report Assignment: A Philanthropic Problem The report problem/situation Minerva Gaskill is a multimillionaire and the founder of Acme, Inc

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Analytical Report Assignment: A Philanthropic Problem

The report problem/situation

Minerva Gaskill is a multimillionaire and the founder of Acme, Inc. She’s also its CEO.

Gaskill would like to do more to share the fruits of Acme’s success and to promote Acme, Inc. as a caring company. She plans to initiate a new charitable giving initiative at Acme called “World of Help.” The World of Help campaign will encourage Acme’s employees and customers to consider partner charities when making year-end, tax-deductible donations. Acme will match employee/customer donations to partner charities up to $75,000.

Gaskill has hired Ronco Associates, an independent research firm, to assess the activities and finances of three potential partner charities. These charities were mentioned at a meeting of Acme’s board as possible recipients of Acme’s support. A senior consultant at Ronco, you’ve been given the lead on this research project. After researching and assessing the charities selected, you will write a report containing your conclusions on the suitability of supporting these charities. The report must include your recommendations about selecting one or more of these charities as recipients of charitable giving. In a virtual meeting with you, Gaskill says,

It is important that our partner charities deserve the funds we give to them. You need to find out how deserving they are and whom they help. I want to do the most good—have as high an impact as possible—without wasting funds. I hear stories about how poorly some charities are run—how high their administrative costs are or how little they accomplish. And there are reports that some charities raise money as fronts for those who solicit it. Specifically, I want you to check out this charity that my brother Henry (on Acme’s board of directors) has previously supported called        A         and these two other charities that are personally supported by another board member       B         and        C       . [See Charity Selection below].

Find out what good the charities do, how efficient they are with their money, their financial standing (are they broke, hoarding funds, and so on), and anything else that will help our board of directors decide whether to favor them. Check out a copy of their most recent Form 990 tax information.

Your goal will be to determine how deserving of assistance each charity is…. You DO NOT need to worry about the public relations or marketing aspect of partnering with these organizations--I’ve got another team considering their potential on that front. When you have gathered all your information, analyze it, compare, and conclude. Please rank these three in order of how highly you recommend them. The board might decide to direct all its donations and/or fundraising efforts to one, divide equally, or vary among them. They’ll do whatever appears to be right, but please offer your recommendation based on the facts you uncover.

Gaskill also says that she doubts all of Acme’s board members have previously considered how to choose a charity to support, so you know that your report will need to explain your methods for selecting a deserving charity. You’ll need to be very clear about what criteria are you using to determine which charities should get donations (and which should not). Your report should provide objective measures to support your recommendations rather than rely solely on anecdotal stories or personal opinions.

Your task

Write a formal analytical report to address the report topic above. In the report, your research findings will be addressed to the company’s board of directors. An initial, complete draft of the report’s text (report proper with references) is due for peer feedback on Canvas. The final report including front matter, report proper, and references is also due on Canvas. Due dates appear on the Course Module Schedule and in individual course modules.

Creating a draft for peer review

What follows is information to aid you in preparing the initial, complete draft for peer review.

Charity selection

For the report, select the three charities (let’s call them A, B, and C) you will examine where

• A is a charity identified as one of the worst by either of these websites:

• The 20 Worst Charities You Shouldn't Be Donating To (https://moneyinc.com/worst-charities-you-shouldnt-be-donating-to/)

• The 50 Worst Charities in America- How to Keep from Being Scammed (The 50 Worst Charities in America- How to Keep from Being Scammed | SmartAsset)

• B and C are any two non-profit 501(c)(3) public charities that you want to investigate. Donations to 501(c)(3) charities are tax deductible on U. S. federal tax returns. 

Use the actual names of the charities along with their actual data in the report.

Although a charity can be defined as an organization that helps people who are in need (like the poor, sick, or hungry) (Merriam-Webster, 2014), a charity may also address a concern such as animal welfare, the environment, the arts, historic preservation, justice issues, human rights, economics, social policy, and so on. Any non-profit 501(c)(3) public charities are suitable for B and C of this project.

The charities you select may be doing similar kinds of work (such as cancer research) or different kinds of work (e.g. feeding the poor, supporting inner-city youth, and malaria eradication). They may be operating in the same geographic area or in different areas.

Criteria for assessment

Because you will be assessing and comparing these charities, you’ll need to have an objective way of evaluating them. It’s not enough that they purport to do good things because all charitable organizations--the effective and the ineffective--will say they are doing good work. For example, what you think is most important to consider when choosing a charity? Why? How have other people or organizations rated or ranked charities? What method(s) did they use to create their assessments of charities? You could develop your own method for evaluating these charities based on Gaskill’s preferences and your sense of what’s important and/or adopt the ratings system of a source (as long as you cite it and its ratings).

Data sources

The report should be based on seven or more sources, at least two of which must be from periodical publications (such as newspapers, magazines, or journals). This is very small number of sources when you consider that each individual charity report in charitynavigator.org counts as one source. This report can be completed by relying on information available on the web.

The report topic requires that you analyze current information for the charities.  For charity data, try to use the most recent sources available—preferably those produced within the last three years. Data may come from a mix of secondary sources (periodicals, web articles) and primary sources (a charity’s Form 990, annual report, or website).  

Cite all sources of data in the report text using the author-date system of APA.  Show direct quotes. APA style is one of the citation style covered in Appendix C of our textbook. A page or module of resources to help you use APA style will be available on Canvas. Or, see the Online WritingLab’s (Purdue University) guidelines at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ 

Avoid constructing your report text by pervasively cutting and pasting from sources.  This practice plagiarizes even when original sources are cited.  The cut-and-paste approach also creates a document lacking in logical flow, clarity, and style.

Although these sources won’t have all the information you’ll need, here’s a a few sources you may want to consult as you begin your research:

Charities and nonprofits. (February 3, 2020). IRS (https://www.irs.gov/charities-and-nonprofits)

Charity Navigator - Your Guide To Intelligent Giving (Homepage) (2020) (charitynavigator.org).

CharityWatch: Charity Ratings, Donating Tips, Best Charities (Homepage) (2020) https://www.charitywatch.org/

Depew, Bradley. (November 20, 2019). How to find a charity worthy of your donation. https://www.thebalancesmb.com/charity-worthy-of-your-donation-2501930

Wang, Penelope. (November 22, 2019) Best charities for your donations. (https://www.consumerreports.org/charities/best-charities-for-your-donations/

Draft expectations

Your draft of the report text should be the nearly complete and long enough to cover the topic adequately without wasting words. An estimated length is 2000-2500 words.

Your draft should

• Use indirect pattern for your report, which means it will

• Begin with an introduction including a problem/purpose (topic) statement and an explanation of how you gathered your data (sources and methods of data collection).  You may include additional typical introductory elements as needed (see Chapter 13).
• Present and discuss/analyze your research findings (the facts you found).
• Draw conclusions, but only about what these findings/facts show in relation to the problem/purpose.
• Offer recommendation(s) as appropriate. Say what action, if any, the reader should take in response to your conclusions.

• Cite sources throughout the report using parenthetical in-text citations, APA style.
• Include a complete list of references in APA style, alpha-order.
• Incorporate headings and subheadings for each section and subsection.
• Use a professional and impersonal language style appropriate for a formal report.

A satisfactory draft is available on-time for peer review and meets all the expectations listed above in terms of length/completeness, organization, citations, references, headings/subheadings, and language style.

An unsatisfactory draft is less than complete; submitted too late to share with peers; poorly organized; missing parts such as key sections, citations, a list of references, or heading/subheadings; or uses a very informal language style inappropriate for the audience.

A not attempted draft is not submitted to peer reviewers and instructor or does not minimally address the assigned topic. In order to get a grade on the final report, a draft must be submitted for feedback.

Format

Aside from using headings and subheadings to show section/subsection breaks, format for the initial draft is open.  However, if you wish to use the format required in the final draft, you may do so.  For an overview, see “Preparing the report final draft” attached to final draft instructions on Canvas or see the sample long, formal report in Chapter 13.

Graphics

Graphics are not required in the initial draft. In the final draft, you should plan to use as many graphics as seem necessary to present your report’s contents clearly. The most likely graphics to include are tables and charts of supporting data. All included graphics, except for cited photographs, must be created by you in Excel, Word, or some other app rather than copied from a source. For example, you could use a table or chart to give a side-by-side comparison of all three charities. At least one graphic must be placed within the report text (not the appendix).