Fair point. I updated the article. The 7.7% is the "Grants and other assistance" line on the 990, and it applies to the $500B charitable nonprofit portion, not the full $3T. A food bank distributing food shows up under program expenses, not grants. The original framing was too easy to misread.
The bigger issue is that even the program expenses line doesn't tell you whether the program worked. A food bank spending $2M on operations could be feeding 50,000 people or 5,000. The form doesn't say.
Comments
Fair point. I updated the article. The 7.7% is the "Grants and other assistance" line on the 990, and it applies to the $500B charitable nonprofit portion, not the full $3T. A food bank distributing food shows up under program expenses, not grants. The original framing was too easy to misread.
The bigger issue is that even the program expenses line doesn't tell you whether the program worked. A food bank spending $2M on operations could be feeding 50,000 people or 5,000. The form doesn't say.