Locks of Love-long post

Locks of Love-long post
 Posted by Dennis on October 06, 2003 at 05:53:31: Previous Next

With all the hub-bub about Locks of Love, I decided to do a bit of my
own investigating.

Before I share what I have found out, I would like to say that I am
not, in any way, affiliated Locks of Love. I am not suggesting anyone cut their hair and donate it to Locks of Love. I simply want to find out the as much as I can about this charity.

According to the Solicitation of Contributions Act, if you request it, the organization must advise you who to contact to obtain the information. The information must be provided to you within 14 days. Federal law also requires that a copy of the IRS tax return must be made available upon request. I did not personally ask for this information, but assume that any financial figures found online are obtained from these documents.

The first thing that is obvious is that if you are feeling charitable
about your hair and want to feel good about a bald, sick child benefiting from it, don’t donate your hair to Locks of Love. They do, indeed, sell most of the hair that is donated to them. Why...because most of it is unsuitable for wig making. It is either too damaged, too short, or gray. Chances are better if your hair is at least 16 inches in length, very healthy and has no gray in it, it may be used by LOL.

Because they are a small, mostly volunteer organization getting as many as 1000 cut ponytails a week, it is impossible to link a donation with the child. According to the Give.org-Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, they had a paid staff of 4 and a Board of Directors of 6 in the year 2000. Also, the children who get the hairpieces are minors, and care is given to protect their privacy.

Contrary to what has been reported on this site and others, they do, in fact, make hairpieces for little boys. There is a before and after pic of a boy right on their site. However, they get very few requests for wigs for little boys.

The Give.org page is a little hard to understand if you are not
familiar with the world of charities. Right off the bat, it says that LOL does not meet three of the twenty Council of Better Business Bureau Standards for Charitable Solicitations. The most alarming of the three is that they do not provide an annual report of their financial activites and position. However, in response, they claim the info is in their individual supporting documents.

Using the BBB/CS page to compare LOL to other charities, it appears
that some charities do meet all twenty standards, and some do not meet any. It is also apparent that charities come is all different shapes and sizes. One should use their judgment and weight which of the standards apply and are important to a giver and which are not.

LOL’s financial status is reported lower on the Give.org page. The Florida based company’s income is 2002 was $373,396. Their final assets after expenses are $55,900. Their books certainly should not be $0 after expenses are paid. They spend over half of their income on their program/mission of providing wigs for kids. Their Chief Executive Officer is a paid position and made just over $40,000 in 2000. Comparing these numbers with the dozens of other charities that are listed, there doesn’t seem to be anything unusual. In fact, LOL’s numbers are small potatoes. It may be hard to swallow, but there is profit in charity. Yet, it doesn’t look like anyone is getting rich and a $40,000 salary is perhaps a middle-class living in Palm Springs, FL. The company cannot be entirely corrupt because kids are actually getting wigs.

Financial info from:

http://www.800helpfla.com/gift_givers/g03100114.html

http://www.give.org/reports/care2_dyn.asp?733


The first misconception is that LOL is actually making the wigs when,
in fact, they are not. They provide the hair and the funds to hire a
company to custom make the wigs for the kids.

Children under six years old get synthetic hair in their hairpieces
because their heads grow so fast. It is cheaper to produce a synthetic wig than a human wig. A child may need multiple hairpieces until his head is fully grown.

Proceeds from the sale of hair that is not used goes to other expenses
such as long distance telephone service, postage, shipping printing and other office expenses. Hair is not that valuable of a commodity to
sell. It is bought and sold by the weight and people that buy it are very picky. If LOL cannot use it for a child’s wig, it is practically
useless and they are not going to make much money per pound. Unfortunately, lots of the hair is surely thrown away.

I researched this charity on the web as thoroughly as possible and see
no real complaints about their business practices.

The cost of a hairpiece for a child is $3000 retail. From what I can
tell, LOL gets them for a wholesale price of $1000, but I may be wrong. They encourage people to make financial donations to help pay the salaries of the few that work there. Your financial donations are tax deductible, however donations of hair are not tax deductible because the IRS considers hair a body part.

What I would like to offer to the readers of the board is to not donate your hair to LOL. They have way more hair than they can use. People are going to assume a lot when they hear “sick kids’ and “donate hair”. Locks of Love says all over their site that they sell the hair they cannot use for kids wigs...but do people check it out? I doubt it.

Locks of Love is running off of a lot of publicity. The make-over shows almost always plug them. It would be dangerous to openly say, “hey you guy, we got more hair than we can use, send us money instead”. That would make them like all of the rest of the charities. By being quiet,long haired people send them hair and they sell it for funds to provide the wigs (or other expenses to support the provide). Short haired people see the long haired people and say, “wow...that is sweet. I do not have hair to offer, but I can send some money???”

If anyone can produce anymore cold, hard facts (not hearsay for
assumptions), I would love to hear them. I am not saying that my findings are 100% accurate, but this is what I found. I looked for actual complaints from people who have dealt with the organization and came up with nothing.

What is disturbing and what I think upsets the true long haired folks
is the, “Hey, I would love to see John Longhair get his hair cut
short. Let’s get everyone in the office together and pool our money. He will feel guilty and let us shave his head!”

Yes.that disturbs me, too. But if I was John Longhair I would let
everyone collect their money and then chicken out at the last
minute....flat out refuse to let anyone touch my hair. Tell the office folks that they should send their money to LOL anyway....or they are REAL jerks.

My philosophy of LOL and the make-over shows is if you are weak enough, and have such a low self esteem that you cannot say no to letting a group of your family, friends or co-workers bully you into an unwanted haircut, then you deserve what you get. People do dumb things all the time and learn from their mistakes. DON’T BE BULLIED!! If you want to donate your hair or change your looks drastically go for it. The bullies should have something of equal value taken from them. If a bully does use the LOL guilt trip, tell them the facts and tell them you will match their financial donation to the charity.

If you don’t want people to jump to conclusions about you, do not
jump to conclusions about Locks of Love. You never see anyone representing or employed by Locks of Love actually cutting hair.

Many may disagree, but I think LOL is ultimately a good intentioned organization. It is illegal for a charitble organiation to harass people into making contributions. If I was a child who had no hair and could not afford a wig, I would be delighted to get a LOL wig. However, I would not like to think someone was bullied into supplying the hair for my wig.



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