Dear all:

Having spent from 1980 until 2000 working in international development,  I learned all too well, 
the high cost of seemingly free items.  All donations come at a cost, and some of those donations 
really are not worth our reputations and end up costing more in the long run.  We are all quite 
aware that the costs of so-called "gift bags" in the hospital exceed the costs to the companies - 
and having just revisiting the Mass. Breastfeeding Coalition website again - there are some 
wonderful new additions about these costs.

Even when I had to write tax donation letters for those who donated to my son's nursery school, it 
became clear that some of those donated items were not worth the energy expended by the Ladies 
Who Lunch (those of you who live in Manhattan will know them) to collect the items.  There was 
always a huge amount of frenzied activity in the closing moments before the auction to include 
these wayward items in the auction catalogue.  Having spent far too many years defensively trying 
to track the finances in an organization that was constantly diverting funds from sucessful 
programs into unsuccessful programs, I learned to have a detailed eye for the costs of 
administrative time doing unproductive activities.

I highly advise you all to "Look the Gift Horse in the Mouth" and determine if the hidden costs are 
worth it.

Here is what I am ashamed of  and very glad that I no longer have to put up with now that I work 
for myself:

One of our vitamin supplement donors had a very tiny budget that provided grants.  They wrote a 
nice newsletter to what one of my field staff called the "blue-haired ladies who want the nice story 
about the kids they saved."  The person they put in charge of this fund which perhaps was at best 
0.0001% of their profits was a former rat scientist.  He knew nothing about epidemiology, nothing 
about international programs, nothing about program evaluation.  He was very high maintainence 
and perhaps half of the 0.0001% of their fund was used up in "entertainment funds" when he came 
to town.  Perhaps because he spent too much time with rats, he lost his ability to do math.  I never 
met a person who was more inept at reading a simple budget.  I doubt he could balance his 
checkbook.  So, I really think about one quarter of the 0.0001% of their budget was expended in 
staff time sending him various versions of budget and expenditure reports that my seven year old 
could now easily comprehend.  

Guess what.  This 0.0001% of their budget was used to hide the fact that they and another 
company were price fixing vitamin A supplements.  

Another company that donated to the Eye Care program for the organization that I worked for  
was involved in mining in Indonesia.  As some of you are very well aware, mining has devastated 
the environment in many areas of Indonesia.   

I recently accepted a donation - not monetary, but a product.  I made sure that the product was 
totally unrelated to the research that should might come out of that donation.  To me this feels 
ethical.  This might not feel ethical to others, but this is my personal criteria.  Some of you might 
feel I shouldn't have done it and I would chew it over in my mind.

At one point, I proposed some research on Lactnet about pump flanges.  Apart from the fact that I 
would never have time to do such research, I really think someone independent should do the 
research because I did accept the free pump flanges.  I would have to disclose the fact that I 
received those free pump flanges and I could never assure you that this didn't influence my 
conclusions about the research (unless perhaps I thought the flanges were lousy, but having used 
them I really don't).

Again, I highly urge you to look your gift horses in the mouth.  

Best regards, Susan Burger

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