I've been a long term contributor to St Jude for many years now. The 20% reserve fund is a long term strategic investment to build up an endowment over roughly a 10-20 year time period to become self-sustaining - much like several Ivy league schools have done over the past 20-30 years which now can fully fund tuition, room and board for all need based scholarships solely from the investment proceeds of the endowment itself. It's an extremely wise long term approach to solving funding problems for any institution - including medical care institutions like St. Jude. Of course if there's corruption or any fraud involved then these things need to be rooted out and eliminated - but AFAIK that's not at issue. On the other hand - having 30% go toward admin expenses and fundraising expenses is pretty steep compared to most other charitable organizations - television advertising isn't cheap and it shows up in their high admin expense ratios without a doubt.
