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(* = Please don’t sue me!) Right… Let’s get to it!

Omaze – How much goes to charity? (Or how little)

If you were like me, you have found yourself wondering like many others; how much does actually go to charity? Which is a very legitimate question and concern since they claim to be for the purpose of fundraising. Google Search rich snippet says that Omaze is a “for-profit company” – which is basically what it is. Not a real fundraising & charity business – but a for-profit company.

And if you really still try to find out how much they give to charity? That is really difficult! There is no other way of putting it: There is some deception and careful content-planning going on that you have to get around, in order to find the answer to how much actually goes to charity (an answer provided by Omaze – so make of that what you will).

Their About Us page is constructed in such a clever way, that most people just trying to quickly find out how much actually goes to the charities would think that the percentage is 60%, when it’s actually 15% if playing for any other prize than Celebrity Experiences according to their About Us page: https://www.omaze.com/pages/about-us

Omaze’s “About Us” page doesn’t tell you clearly anything. But what’s clear is that they try to present the 60% going to charity as their most prominent figure of what goes to charity. For example in the section “We believe in impact over percentages” the only graph about the portion that goes to the charity is using of course the 60% portion of the donation.

I’ve added for fair measure what 15% of $500,000 looks like:

So as in their example above: If you were to donate $100,000 directly to the charity, and $90,000 would go to them in the end. But if we’re using the 15% rather than the 60% of the $500,000 they use; only $75,000 goes to the charity! So a lot less goes to charity from basically 5 times the ‘donation’. But this graph is of course there to mislead the people who try to quickly just skim through the page and find out how much goes to charity if you ‘donate’ via Omaze.

And a whopping $425,000 goes where exactly? Mostly into Omaze’s pocket. They state that Omaze takes 15% cut of the donation, but I can bet you anything a lot of the ‘marketing budget’ and other ‘operational costs’ goes right into the pocket of Omaze but they just call them a bit differently like salaries and bonuses and other fees.

I completely understand that all companies need money to run, and they can run their company as they like – BUT it’s a bit rich to call it fundraising if $75,000 of $500,000 actually goes to a good cause when talking about non-celebrity prizes.

Omaze Winners

On their website they have a “Who won?” Section, which will give you access to this years’ (2020) and last year’s (2019) winners. But there are no earlier winners shown, which is slightly weird to me – as if you wanted to be perceived as a legitimate gambling-and-tax-law-dodging-money-making-machine, surely you would showcase the real people a bit better? Considering you have run your fundra… Nay, money-grab-raffle since 2012? Who won before?

Omaze – Advertising Examples

The biggest reason why I wanted to find out what Omaze actually is and how they operate, is because I have been targeted numerous times by their adverts. Since they seem to have great prizes they are promoting, and they are heavily using celebrities to promote them too.

Here are some screenshots I have taken from my personal Facebook News Feed:

Got to Spend Money to Make Money!

One thing that is clear from these A-list celebrity endorsements and very expensive prizes – they are making money and using a lot of the ‘donations’ given on getting these celebrities on board and further pushing more ads to us. It’s like the more you donate, the more they can advertise and keep making money themselves and – afford even more adverts! This concept seems like an exponentially faster & well-oiled money-making-machine. And my guess is that one reason they get these celebrities on board is also the fact that celebrities like to pat themselves on the back – and nothing is better than being paid for an advert that is for a ‘good cause’! (But it’s probably the money too)

Omaze – Good Things Come to Those Who… Get Given Good Things?
(Money to Omaze in this case)

Just to sum this all up: I think the facepalm on their landing page with the message “Good things come to those who give.” wraps it all nicely together really, it almost seems like there’s a bit of irony there! I.e. They’re almost having a laugh at you for thinking you’re actually giving money to charity!

PS. The reason why all images are pixelated is as follows:
With such a company that is so seemingly shady as Omaze is, I really don’t want to use any of their images or logos to steer clear of any issues even if most if not all would be deemed under ‘Fair Use’.

Slightly paranoid? Probably. Sensible? Definitely. Considering the millions and millions they give to cha… Oops almost got myself there. Right. Considering the millions and millions they give to celebrities and the sheer quantity of marketing they can afford – I’m sure they can afford and are quite willing to try and take down anything and anyone who might have an opinion that might harm their business.

The Small Print

By clicking on the Small Print accordion tab below you can find the current small print from the Win a McLaren page for reference. There is no need for you to read it because I will tell gladly what I think about it right here and right now – but you can if you like.

Point 1 – Chances of Winning Omaze: The small print says contributing doesn’t increase your chances of winning. This is clearly a legal thing. But… Why give the option of buying more entries if contributing doesn’t increase the chances of winning? Am I reading this correctly? Are they essentially fooling everyone by giving an impression of having a greater chance of winning if you just throw more money at them? I mean, of course they would. That’s how they get more money.

Point 2 – How Much Goes to Charity: After the subheader “Transparency” they claim they are “not about percentages” but impact…. But that’s again something they like to say because the percentages don’t look too good. It states again in this small print that 15% only goes to the charity.

Point 3 – How Much Goes to Omaze: I have to give Kudos to the writer of these because they are really downplaying the amount that they get in every possible way. They say 70% of the of the donations TYPICALLY (vague – not factual!) is used to get the prize, process payments and then mentioned last but by no means least advertising to “awesome people like you”. I’ll bet you anything the biggest portion of that usage is in advertising – and THEN after that 15% goes to Omaze directly.

So if you were to truthfully explain how much goes to Omaze, you might as well say 85% of your kind donation thank you very much.

What’s the Alternative Then?

I have three very simple suggestions for you.

Option 1 – If you want to donate to charities and good causes

Then just find the charity you want, and go directly to their website. Most charities typically give you means of how to directly donate to them. And most charities or causes show their financial reports on how the money is spent as well, unlike Omaze.

Option 2 – If you want to donate to charities but still want to win a price

Then, donate whatever amount you feel comfortable donating (knowing it will mostly go to the charity), and you can still enter Omaze’s prize draws for free with the ‘Free Entry’ mechanism that is provided on all the pages. Will you ever win with this free entry? Probably not. Are the chances much different than if you were to donate to them? Probably not.

Option 3 – If you want to donate to charities, but also want to have a real chance of winning a price such as a brand new car & cash

Now, this is of course a biased suggestion coming from the author of this website, as this site is solely dedicated for ‘spot the ball’. But I’d recommend you donate to the cause that is dear to you directly as in the option above. But instead of Omaze check out also how you can use your own skills to win a brand new car and £20,000 in the boot with spot the ball!

How? This website has all the info you need & explanations from:

• How to play spot the ball?
• What prizes can you win with spot the ball?
• And check out the free spot the ball quizzes you can practice with to get a hang of it before spending any of your hard-earned money

Is Omaze legit then?

And the answer to that is: Who cares really? Probably? But doesn’t matter in the end. And why? Because there are better things for you to do if you want to donate to charities, or if you want to win prizes like a car. Or both.

Of course this website wants to promote spot the ball as a competition method and the affiliate links to BOTB, but it doesn’t make the validity of the statements and recommendations above any less valid. It’s like you wouldn’t listen to a toothbrush salesman’s recommendation to use a toothbrush for cleaning your teeth instead of a stick you found on the pavement in the 90’s. While he might be selling toothbrushes and benefit from the sale, that doesn’t make his recommendations wrong and you’d be a lot better off by just buying the toothbrush.

Silly example? Sure. Wrong? Not one bit.

You can find more information about my recommended alternative to means of winning yourself a car & cash below.