Charities that receive donations as their primary source of fundraising have little expenses and therefore have a higher ratio. Charities that undertake fundraising activity with expenses will show a far low ratio. It does not make one ethical and the other unethical. Look at the admin costs as a % of revenue. That's your best indicator.
Still not great. As you say, donations should not require half of the revenue to collect and I don't see why 50/50 would take a lot of costs, and those two actives make up 75% of the revenues.
So unless the special events almost make no money at all, I don't see how it gets to 50%.
Plus, these are not small charities. I can understand where someone might make the argument that a very large charity can find administrative and costs efficiencies that a very small charity cannot, thereby decreasing expenses. Sens foundation is pretty much half the size of MLSE Foundation in both staff and money given, yet we have a much higher cost profile.
Seems like a lot of the revenue goes to grants. Wish the sens statement broke this out into cash vs. in-kind gifts like MLSE does. Because if it's 2 mil in cash they gave away to local charities that's great. If it's 20,000 signed Mark Borowiecki bobble heads valued at $100 a piece, then did the team really give away 2 mil?