Watchdog: Best–and worst–bangs for your charity bucks

If you’re thinking about donating to the Dallas, Texas-based Point of View Ministries or to the Defeat Diabetes Foundation of Madeira Beach, Fla. you might want to reconsider. Those groups are among the consistently lowest scoring nonprofit organizations at Charity Navigator. The charity watchdog has released a study of groups that repeatedly earn its top 4-star rating and, conversely, those that repeatedly get 0 stars.

The group’s scores are based on various factors, including how much of their money is spent on programs instead of fundraising or other purposes,

It listed nine groups that it said consistently have received 0 stars. Clicking on the names below will take you to their ratings page on Charity Navigator's web site.

Point of View Ministries, Dallas, Texas

Defeat Diabetes Foundation, Madeira Beach, Fla.

National Veterans Services Fund, Inc.,  Darien, Conn.

Youth Development Fund, Knoxville, Tenn.

Children's Charity Fund, Inc., Sarasota, Fla.

SPD Foundation,  Greenwood Village, Colo.

Wishing Well Foundation USA, Metairie, La.

Deputy Sheriffs' Fraternal Organization,  Indianapolis, Ind.

Firefighters Charitable Foundation, Farmingdale, NY.

Many of the organization’s top scorers were colleges and universities, although there were other top-rated groups as well. Among the consistent 4-star recipients are:

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.

Northeastern University,  Boston, Mass.

Stanford University, Stanford Calif.

Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, DC

The Children's Aid Society, New York, N.Y.

Christian Foundation for Children and Aging, Kansas City, Kan.

Breast Cancer Research Foundation, New York, N.Y.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Mass.

Food For The Poor, Coconut Creek, Fla.

–Anthony Giorgianni

Madoff's 150-year sentence doesn't mean the end of financial scams

Unless you were among his many victims, you might think the 150-year sentence Bernie Madoff received today would put an end to big investment frauds on Wall Street.

But sadly Madoff is not the only swindler out there who would be happy to part you from your cash. One recent reminder: the indictment of R. Allen Stanford, the Texas financier who pleaded innocent last Thursday to federal criminal charges of stealing $7 billion in an international Ponzi scheme.

Check out who is likely to be taken by a scamster, and the details on investment schemes and how to avoid being ensnared by them.–Mandy Walker

Set It and Regret It? Target-date funds in the crosshairs

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Labor held hearings last week to examine target-date funds (TDFs), particularly in light of the financial nightmare known as 2008. 

A target-date fund, also known as a lifecycle fund, is a combination of ordinary mutual funds, usually inexpensive stock and bond funds. The TDF manager controls the proportions of each ingredient over the life of the fund, and the investor can cross off asset allocation from his list of chores.  Spurred by recent legislation, most 401(k) plans now include target-date funds among investment choices. 

But as we learned, target-date funds got clobbered in 2008 like almost every other investment, even those TDFs designed for those on the cusp of retirement. About thirty fund managers, financial advisers, and consumer advocates gathered to present their viewpoints on these funds, and suggested improvements. 

Recession survival advice, Berkeley-style

You may know Berkeley, California as home of the '60s hippie movement that advocated illicit drug use, free love, and music; Code Pink’s war on the local U.S. Marine recruiting; and occasional major foreign policy pronouncements from the city council.

Now comes some advice about how to get through the recession in ways that require little or no money. “Berkeley has always been the place for thinking outside the box,” says Olaf Egeberg, author of “Coming Home: A Crossover Bible for Christians, Muslims, Jews, and members of other religious faiths, as well as for thoroughly non-religious persons,” available free at www.changesahead.net.

Egeberg, 71, who developed much of his thinking about how to stretch his dollars during 25 years living in Berkeley, starting in 1963, has spent a lifetime living economically, largely by exchanging his carpentry skills for housing on the east and west coasts. 

While the advice is short on the kind of dollar-oriented tips you ordinarily read on this blog, the softer, more philosophical approach–which boils down to people helping each other–is worth packing in your complete bag of recession survival tricks.

PayPal's new service airs the public–and oft humiliating–dare

To Jimmy C., the guy who publicly ate a worm in the Summit, N.J., high school gym in 1975 on a $75 dare, there's a new Web service just for you. 

The site, a PayPal initiative called DoStuffForMoney, lets participants offer to pay other folks via PayPal to do small–and large–things that they either need to or want to be done, no matter how menial or questionable. "It's a fun new way to motivate people to do, well, pretty much whatever you want them to," the PayPal press release says. 

Basically, you go to the site and write a message to someone saying what you'd like done, and how much you'll pay, through PayPal. Your can send the offer via Facebook, or via e-mail. If you choose Facebook, the message shows up on the person's Facebook wall. The offer also shows up on the DoStuffForMoney page for all the world to see. 

Kodachrome fades to black

If you're old enough to remember mechanical cameras made of metal and Carousel slide projectors, mark today on your calendar. It’s the day that film died. The film, that is. After 74 years, Eastman Kodak Co., announced it will stop making its iconic Kodachrome, the world’s first commercially successful color film, because hardly anyone’s buying it anymore.

When Paul Simon immortalized Kodachrome in his 1973 hit song, he summarized in a few words what many photographers of a certain age had long believed:

Kodachome

They give us those nice bright colors

They give us the greens of summers

Makes you think all the worlds a sunny day

Some good news on 401(k) and 403(b) matches

Close to half (48 percent) of employers that reduced their 401(k) or 403(b) match during the recent financial chaos intend to reinstate it within the next 12 months. That’s according to a just-released survey from the consulting firm Watson Wyatt.

For most people, our longstanding advice has been to contribute at least enough to your plan to get the entire employer match. When the match disappears, the decision becomes trickier, but it's usually a good idea to keep contributing, as long as you're happy with the investment choices and the plan seems reasonably well managed. You might even want to increase your contributions, when allowed, to make up for the lost match. (This assumes you aren't already contributing to the max.)

If your retirement plan still has some catching up to do (and whose doesn't?), here are some recent tips from the Consumer Reports Money Adviser.  --Greg Daugherty

Greg writes the “Retirement Guy” column each month in the Consumer Reports Money Adviser newsletter.

Should you still go to a fee-only financial planner?

NAPFA, the National Organization of Personal Financial Advisors, is the best-known industry group of fee-only financial planners, who charge by the hour and do not accept commissions–an arrangement we recommend. NAPFA has been a champion of adviser integrity and campaigns for issues in the interest of consumers.

So the recent news that one of its former presidents was charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with accepting $1.24 million in kickbacks dealt a highly embarrassing public relations blow to the organization.

The SEC litigation release alleges that James Putman, founder and CEO of Wealth Management, an Appleton, Wisconsin investment company, and Simone Fevola, the company’s former president and chief investment officer, each accepted the kickbacks involving six unregistered investment pools they managed. The complaint also alleges that Wealth Management, Putman and Fevola breached their fiduciary duties and engaged in fraud by misrepresenting the safety and stability of the two largest pools. Click here for NAPFA’s response.

Imposter on Craigslist hawks phony BBB consumer protections

The Better Business Bureau is warning that an imposter on the popular advertising Web site Craigslist is masquerading as a BBB-accredited business and telling prospective buyers that their purchases are protected by a BBB program that actually doesn’t exist.

Bureaus across the country have reported receiving complaints about ads for various products, including golf bags and strollers, under more than a dozen women’s names. Those who respond to ads receive an e-mail that assures them the advertiser is accredited and that it participates in the BBB Protection Program, which would protect them should they not receive any items paid for on the advertiser’s Web site.

The BBB has no such program.

Buzzword: Automatic IRA

The Automatic Individual Retirement Account is a concept that’s been kicking around for a few years and may actually happen now that it’s included in both President Obama’s 2010 budget and the Treasury Department's Financial Regulatory Reform proposals released earlier this week. Basically, the Automatic IRA would make a mini 401(k)-like retirement plan available to millions of American workers who currently aren’t covered.

The law would apply to employers with 10 or more workers, that have been in business for at least two years, and that don't currently offer a retirement plan. They would be required to enroll their employees in an IRA and fund it through regular payroll deductions.

Employees would be allowed to opt out. But to lessen that possibility and encourage participation, the proposal would also modify the current saver’s credit for workers with modest incomes by making it “refundable.” That means participating workers could receive a credit, deposited into the automatic IRA, even if they owed less than that amount in taxes. We'll report on this in greater detail if it comes to pass. Meanwhile, more about the saver’s credit and how it currently works here. —Greg Daugherty

Greg writes the “Retirement Guy” column each month in the Consumer Reports Money Adviser newsletter.