37,000,000 hits on you tube. Only about 1,000,000 likes. About 32,000 dislikes. (This is as of March 8, 2012.) Apparently not a whole lot of people went through the whole 29 minute video.
Many comments are found on You Tube and Facebook that this is a scam initiated by Invisible Children. Let’s do some rudimentary detective work!
We called the auditors, Considine and Considine, a CPA firm founded in 1946, and verified that they prepared the statements, and have been the auditors for five years. (Real CPAs such as these would not be associated with a scam.)
Invisible Children raised $14mm in the 2010-2011 year. They spent $9mm. Approximately $7mm went to programs (78% … pretty darn good.) The two founders and the CEO were paid roughly $90,000 each in salaries for their work (IMO a fair number for the amount of effort necessary to run an organization of this size). You can find this data on their tax return at Guidestar.org.
I suggest that if you appreciate the cause … it’s a fair place to send a donation!