Bono’s ONE Foundation Poverty Initiative Gave Only 1% to Charity

Established by the aging U2 frontman in 2004, ONE collected nearly £9.6 million ($12,881,191) in donations in 2008 but gave only £118,000 ($158,310) to charitable causes (1.2 per cent).

According to the New York Post, figures show that £5.1million ($6,842,229) went towards paying salaries.

A spokesman for the group dismissed the notion of lavish salaries being paid to its 120 members of staff and said the organisation has been highly efficient in its ability to raise awareness about world poverty. There is a grain of truth to this statement; however, this assumes that 1) every one of the 120 employees is getting paid for their time and 2) each member is getting paid the same salary. Providing both of these criteria are met, each staff member is being paid $57,000 for their efforts. Which isn't unreasonable, but it's highly unlikely every staff member is being paid equally. Therefore, we can comfortably assume that most of these people are simply volunteers or very low-paid staff and that only a few administrators are sharing this windfall. 

ONE said it took no money from the public and that most of its funding came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Will this be the last donation they receive from the Gates Foundation?

A comment from the Daily Mail Forum says it best, "[Bono] before you start asking us to give away our money to the poor, donate yours first".

We have argued it before and we will say it again, "non-profit" is a complete misnomer and Bono's great campaign against poverty is an image-marketing sham.