A few nights ago, News Center 5 ran a segment on Vehicle Donation Programs. It was a negative report prompted by a donor whose car was grossly undersold by an Auction that acts as the Car Donation Agent for the Arthritis Foundation and other charities. The story emphasized how the auction has no incentive to demand maximum sales proceeds from donation cars since they make a flat $50 on every car donation they handle, regardless of what the cars sell for. The charity ended up with $200 from a car that was worth substantially more--it eventually sold for $1650. The winner, in this case, was the car dealer who purchased this car at auction for far below its wholesale value and sold it for a profit of more than $1,000.

Once again, the News put a negative spin on Vehicle Donation Programs by focusing on this incident. The message was that charities are not the winners when it comes to car donations.

We have contacted ABC News to assure them that NOT ALL VEHICLE DONATION PROGRAMS work the same. We offered to share information on how our program works and how it is very different from that featured in their story.

First of all, we work primarily with Manheim Auctions across the country. We receive a detailed condition report on every vehicle that's donated, and set a floor price for the sale of every vehicle. If our floor price is not met, we require that the vehicle be run again in upcoming auction sales. Our floor price takes into account all the mechanical and cosmetic repairs that need to be made to the vehicle. The dealer's purchasing our donation cars most often have to do work on the vehicles to prepare them for sale to the public.

Second, commercial auctions are not our exclusive outlet for car donation sales. All cars donated from MA are brought to our lot for inspection. We personally evaluate every vehicle to determine if a car is ?safe? to be sold to the public and if so, which sale venue will generate the greatest proceeds for you. We sell some cars directly from our lot, others are sold on e-bay, and others are sent to auction.

Unlike the Car Donation Program Featured in the News, we have an incentive to sell cars for maximum value. Remember, we split net proceeds with you, 50/50. Our business is dependent upon generating maximum proceeds from all car donations.

We know we're doing something right when our car donors tell us how pleased (and often surprised!) they are at the amount we're able to sell their cars for. After all, almost every donated vehicle comes with a package of ?issues? that need to be fixed?.issues that the donors did not want to invest in.

The News story concluded with the message that charities are losing with vehicle donation programs. We disagree, and we hope you do too. If you value the assistance our Car Donation Program provides to your charity, we encourage you or your PR person to contact the news, either via e-mail or phone, and let them know that there are reputable donation programs out there that really do help.