M,
Apparently you do not really understand the information in the 990.
Look at page 10 of the 990, you should note that total expenses for the year was $30,841,000, of which $19,482,000 was spent on the programs which is 63%, just a bit lower than the BBB standard of 65%. The management and general (what you call your “overhead”) was $1,441,000 which is 4%. Very low.
The funds spent advertising for cars directly result in the donations. These are resources that they would not have from anywhere else and likely would not have been benefitting anyone. Those could hardly be considered part of overhead.
Anyone who is familiar with car donation programs knows that they are expensive to get and you cant compare to other fundraising.
However, there are many of the national charities that use “fund raising” professional agencies that retain 90% of the funds they raise. This is nowhere near that.
Your percentages about what goes to help people does not even match the source of where you are getting information from (They do notch the information in the 990. You are taking unlike numbers). Yours is just made up bad math.
Further, you seem to think that they agency must spend every dollar they raise during the period they raise it. Without putting any aside4 to maintain the viability of the agency, which is just imprudent.
And as far as spending $1 to make $3, would you be happier if that was an investment? Not for profits can have investments. All the larger have investments and endowments.. In fact, for large universities, that is actually the largest part of their activities. (See Harvard or Yale)Then it would be an unbelievable return.