Celestial voices bid for votes to compete in a gospel sing-off

From Dan DeLuca's "In the Mix"

www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inthemix/

Gospel fans, get ready to exercise your democratic prerogative to vote for the most divine church choirs in the Philadelphia region. There's a gospel sing-off scheduled for the Wachovia Center on Sept. 17 called "How Sweet the Sound." Up to eight Philadelphia-

area choirs will compete in the Few Voices and Many Voices categories. Thirteen choirs are in the running for those slots, and fans can vote to determine who gets to compete at HowSweetTheSound.com. Tickets: $5 and $7.

In the Few Voices category, it's between All About Christ, from York; The Grace and Truth Delegation, from Brookhaven; The Sounds of Life, from Willingboro; and the Ambassador Seed of Love Church and Bishop's Men Of Song, both from Philadelphia.

In the Many Voices slot, contenders are the Abundant Life Fellowship Worship Center of Edgewater Park, N.J.; Voices of Canaan, from New Castle, Del.; The Chorale, from Bensalem; Simpson Men's Choir, from Wilmington; and Voices of Victory Mass Choir, Kingdom Worship Center Congregational Choir, and United Voices of Ford Memorial Temple, all of Philadelphia.

From Peter Dobrin's "Arts Watch"

www.philly.com/philly/blogs/ artswatch/

Charity Navigator is one of the standard rating services meant to help donors decide where to put their money, so when the Please Touch Museum showed up on its list of "10 Charities Drowning in Administrative Costs," we took notice.

So did the museum. After all, placement on the list all but waves donors away from the groups: "These 10 charities are not models of efficiency. Each directs more than 44 percent of its budget towards administrative costs. That means most of your money goes toward such expenses as liability insurance, accounting and legal services, administrative salaries, and investment expenses, not the programs you aim to support."

Please Touch made the 10th spot on the list of ignominy, with 44.9 percent of its income going to administrative costs.

That would be valuable information to any prospective donor - but there's more to the story.

It turns out the year Charity Navigator measured was the year the museum made its move from Center City to the renovated 1876 Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park. It's understood in the cultural world that the first year in a new facility requires a temporary period of larger staffing, since the crowds in the first year are larger than the second and third, and no one fully knows what size staff will be required for the long run.

The museum says its staff level has dropped already, from 144 in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2009, to 117 today (measured in full-time equivalents).

"The huge uptick was for hiring front-of-house staff to accommodate opening and 4,000 visitors a day, which is what we experienced in our first months - porters, security, admissions staff," says museum executive vice president Concetta Anne Bencivenga.

Attendance for the last full year in the old facility was 180,000; the first year in the new facility drew 687,000 visitors. This year, the museum is projecting that 595,000 children and their keepers will pass through the doors of Memorial Hall.

Sandra Miniutti, Charity Navigator's vice president for marketing, says her group did not take the move into account when calculating the museum's administrative efficiency.

"We solely look at the financial data on their form 990s," she said, referring to the IRS tax return for nonprofits. "No special allowances are made for special activities going on."

Asked whether appearing on the list fastened any kind of stigma to the museum, she said, simply: "No."

No one can prove it, of course, but I doubt she's right. I suspect that many who see this list in its unexplained state may hesitate to give money. This at a time when the museum is still trying to raise $30 million to pay off its new digs.