Alexander to Ask Charity Rule Change

Clifford L. Alexander '55, president of the Student Council, last night announced that he will recommend eliminating the Combined Charities Drive's controversial "ten percent rule."

Alexander called the 1952 regulation a poor rule, "too vague" to administer. It stipulates that organizations listed on the Drive's solicitation cards must use no more than ten percent of their income for administrative expenses.

In its present form, the rule can be understood in at least two different ways, Alexander stated. According to one interpretation, "administrative expense" would represent all organizational expenses whatsoever. In another sense, the same term could be limited to expenses specifically used for raising funds.

During the past few weeks the Drive has applied the former interpretation to the ruling. But this approach forced the Council to provide special exceptions to the rule at its meeting last Thursday night, for two of the charities then proposed were spending more than ten percent of their budgets in overall expenses.

Other Interpretation

Had the rule been interpreted as applying only to fund-raising expenses, however, the Council need not have made any exception.

The two charities for which the Council made exception last week are the National Scholarship Fund for Negro Students and Salzburg Seminar. Both use more than ten percent of their incomes for administration. But in the case of the Fund for Negro Students, for instance, most administrative expense goes to paying for extensive screening services, rather than for fund raising.

Alexander emphasized that the Charities committee has investigated the nature of each listed charity and found each one "to be of the highest calibre."