Sins of Commission: How Much Is Too Much for a Fundraiser to Keep?

Adapted from the writings of Dayan Yitzhak Grossman

March 27, 2025

R’ Yaakov Bender, Rosh Hayeshiva of Yeshiva Darchei Torah in Far Rockaway, New York, writes:

Every Purim, many children of all stripes and ages come to our home. The boys are often collecting for some cause or another, and I am more than happy to give them $5 or $10 each, aside from some of the major campaigns. In years past, I have always encouraged the talmidim of our yeshiva to feel the pain of others, urging them to find a way to alleviate the burdens of Yidden. One of those ways is to raise money for the indigent and poor. I felt honored to be part of a yeshiva where hundreds of talmidim are out there every Purim helping others. Not only that, but the children themselves felt good to help others.

Lo and behold, this year, more boys visited than ever, despite the short day. As always, I asked them for whom they were collecting. Many of the children answered with the names of an organization with which I was not familiar. I asked the children what the organization does; not a single child knew. I let it go on Purim day, but on Shabbos, when one of our children came for the seudah, they showed me glitzy booklets delivered with the weekly Jewish magazines. I was stunned. Basically, children were promised prizes worth nearly 45% of the amount collected, or even more!

Please understand: For many decades, Klal Yisroel has incentivized children to collect, but the prizes were minimal—to thank them for their work. I remember, as a little child, being asked to collect for Chinuch Atzmai. Sure, we ultimately got a prize—but Chinuch Atzmai representatives went around to all the classes explaining what the organization did. We felt part of a sacred mission: to help Klal Yisroel build Torah in Eretz Yisroel.

(In our yeshiva, every spring, as part of our highly successful Bike-a-Thon campaign, we include incentive prizes that cost a small fraction of the amount collected.)

This Purim, it seemed that these children were in essence collecting for themselves—e.g., if a child collected $650, he would receive a beautiful and expensive electric scooter…

I want to emphasize that this is not an “anti-kids-collecting” message. On the contrary, how great it is to instill the proper chinuch in children, to walk outside their own daled amos, raising funds to help others! The Satmar Rav zt”l, who I was zocheh to observe in the Williamsburg of my youth, trained an entire generation of chassidim to look out for and actively take care of each other…

Our job as parents and mechanchim is to imbue midos tovos; not to teach our children to be greedy and busy with themselves. I understand that this started with an organization many years ago, but the prizes then were very limited.

We must not allow this to happen in the coming years.[1]

Like Rav Bender, as well as—anecdotally—many others, this author, too, finds the mercenary nature of children fundraising for organizations about which they know little, motivated wholly or primarily by the promise of expensive prizes that may be worth a substantial fraction of the money raised, to be very distasteful—but it is surprisingly difficult to precisely articulate what, exactly, is the problem with the practice:

• Is the problem that these arrangements violate the prohibition against charging for the performance of a mitzvah? That is certainly a serious issue, but while a proper discussion of the parameters of that prohibition is beyond the scope of this article,[2] it must be acknowledged that the prohibition is generally not observed in most contexts in which it would seem to apply, such as that of shul rabanim, Torah teachers, dayanim, mesadrei gittin, mohalim, and physicians. Poskim have addressed the question and offered justifications for our practice that these professionals charge for their services, but those justifications do not apply to compensating children for fundraising. But if the prohibition does apply in this context, why would it not apply even to the modest “incentive prizes” of which Rav Bender approves?
• Is the problem one of chinuch? (“Our job…is to imbue midos tovos; not to teach our children to be greedy and busy with themselves.”) But why is appealing to a child’s self-interest to motivate him to perform the mitzvah of collecting tzedakah any different from appealing to his self-interest to motivate him to perform the chesed of helping busy parents care for their children—i.e., babysitting? If paying children to babysit does not constitute teaching them to be greedy and busy with themselves, why is offering them prizes for fundraising different?
• Is the problem the excessive overhead of paying out expensive prizes? (“Children were promised prizes worth nearly 45% of the amount collected, or even more.”) Where is the line between “minimal,” “very limited” prizes “that cost a small fraction of the amount collected,” and a “beautiful and expensive” prize for collecting $650? What is an acceptable level of overhead for a tzedakah organization? Are six-figure salaries for fundraisers only acceptable if their salaries constitute a “small fraction” of the amount they raise?

We certainly do not mean to imply that these questions are unanswerable; we are merely noting that precisely articulating just what is wrong with these campaigns is trickier than it may seem. In this article and a follow-up, we consider the question of how much of the funds raised may a tzedakah fundraiser take as his compensation.

The 49% rule

Various gedolei Torah are reported to have permitted a fundraiser to keep up to 49% of the money he raises as compensation for his services. R’ Avrohom Chaim Feuer (a son-in-law and talmid of R’ Mordechai Gifter) reports:

R’ Moshe Heinemann relates that his rosh yeshiva, R’ Aharon Kotler, said a professional fundraiser is allowed to take up to 49% of what he raises as his commission. As long as the majority of the money goes to the institution, it is considered that he was raising funds for the institution and not for himself.[3]

Similarly, R’ Mendel Shafran reports:

There is a rumor—some attribute it to our master the Chazon Ish[4]—that it is permitted to take up to 49%.[5]

The author of the work Mishpat Utzedakah records having heard in the name of gedolim that a fundraiser should take less than half of the funds raised as his compensation, “but I have not authenticated the truth of this rumor.”[6] Some anonymous online commenters attribute such a rule to R’ Yaakov Kamenetsky.

R’ Moshe Sternbuch permits a fundraiser to take “a portion” of the funds raised as his compensation, but not most of it, because that would constitute theft from the donors, at least in the case of “large donations.” (He suggests that in the case of small donations, the donors may not care if the fundraiser keeps most of the money).[7]

R’ Menashe Klein maintains that fundraisers may not take for themselves excessively large percentages of the funds he raises, because were the donors aware of this, they would never make their donations. But while he repeatedly asserts that percentages like 50, 75, 80, and 90 are unacceptable, he never clearly states the maximum percentage that is acceptable; perhaps he would permit anything below 50 percent, but that is not explicit in his teshuvah.[8]

Rav Shafran himself, however, is very skeptical of the 49% rule. In the following article, we shall iy”H discuss his position as well a number of other statements on the subject attributed to various gedolei Torah.

[1]R’ Yaakov Bender Pens Letter Strongly Opposing Out of Control Tzedakah Prizes. 5 Towns Central.

[2]See our discussion of this prohibition in Cash For Kidneys: May One Sell His Organs? Apr. 27, 2023.

[3]R’ Avrohom Chaim Feuer, The Tzedakah Treasury p. 335.

[4]See Ma’asei Hatzedakah p. 43 n. 4, cited in Hilchos Tzedakah siman 19 se’if 1 p. 60 n. 2.

[5]Kovetz Hayashar Vehatov #12 p. 24.

[6]Mishpat Utzedakah perek 7 n. 4, cited in Hilchos Tzedakah ibid. n. 5.

[7]Shu”t Teshuvos Vehanhagos cheilek 2 siman 475.

[8]Shu”t Mishneh Halachos cheilek 4 end of siman 237 s.v. Vehinei ad ko dibarti le’ikar hadin.