Charity

Where do people stand on charity? Culturally, in the UK, charity is very popular, it feels like.

But as I moved in to my mid-20s I became increasingly opposed to the idea of it. Much of this thinking was probably fuelled by the increasing amount of commerciality that charities have employed.

I think my main beefs are:

- Charitable donations slow any progress in making the responsible authorities put in place measures to resolve the root cause of the problem.

- Chief execs of charities, in many cases (as I understand it, I've not conducted research on it though) are on six-figure salaries, and so I can't shake the idea that a proportion of any donation goes toward paying that 6-figure salary.

- The commercialisation of charities and the apparent 'whoever shouts loudest gets the most money' principle. See Poppy appeal, Help for Heroes etc.

- The politicisation of charity - politicians always shoving their support down our necks, and the anyone appearing on the BBC blatantly getting forced to wear a Poppy for 2 weeks prior to 11th November each year.

- The proliferation of charity - social media means that we get bombarded by more appeals for sponsorship than ever before. Should I support the fundraising because we're friends, or only if I particularly support the charity. There's a charity for every good cause you can think of. How do you rank them and filter them?

- The abuse of giving. I signed up to a standing order for a particular charity a few years ago. Once they had my details I was bombarded with requests to up my monthly donation. After a while I got sick of it and withdrew all support.

- The social expectation that you should support charity. Perhaps this is personal to me but I get grief from my other-half whenever there happens to be some prominent charity event on TV and I don't actively support and donate.

- The 'how much do I give?' dilemma every time I consider a donation. I know I'm a relatively fortunate person in comparison to the global average, so am I meant to balance things out...?

What's good about charity? It is democratic - I am free to choose which charities to support and how much I give, rather than have this pre-determined by politicians via the tax system. How much longer that will last though, I don't know. Seems we get closer each year to failure to wear a poppy becoming a criminal offence.

 

I don't actively give to charity, I genuinely can't afford to whilst maintaining what I consider to be a relatively basic Western quality of life. I'll occasionally drop a few pennies into a collection box but that's my lot.

I'm pro-choice

 

Having had some experience of a few charities I certainly wont give money to any foreign one as 90% ( not a researched amount ) of the money goes to the wrong people imo

I used to sell quality 2nd hand clothes and a local church mainly Africans would have collections and come buy loads of clothes from us to send to Africa we would give good discounts as it was a charity, I later found out they was sending it to a shop in Africa and selling to the few Africans that had money of course no more good deals after I found that out if they won't help their own people then why should I?

 

Tricky one. I believe that charity begins at home, if only because at least then you can see where the money goes.

Some charities do work: Macmillan Cancer Support collects a huge amount in donations but is a very professionally run organisation that does a lot of good work. The Big Issue also seems to work quite well. The Red Cross is a safe choice when donating money abroad, and Amnesty International is also a good investment.

My problem is more when charities align themselves with politics or a certain ideology unrelated to charity. Save the Children for instance turns out to have a problem with gays, and frankly giving an award to Tony Blair did not endear them to me. I now view their motivations with suspicion.

As Porkins' suggests, that the existence of charities allows the government to take a step back. This can have pros and cons. The pro is that charities are generally not bogged down by politics (as much) and can do more useful work much more directly. You can arrange it so the charity can claim your tax deduction also. The con is that it allows the government to disavow responsibility, and that less mediapathic causes get neglected in favour of the warm fluffy causes that make donors look and feel good.

The best way to contribute to charity may well be to work as a volunteer at the coal face.

 

Many years ago I went up to Knutston Hall for a week in northamptonshire. I arrived on a monday morning and the car park was packed full of BMW's, Mercs and Audi's. At reception I asked what was with all the flash cars? She replied that Oxfam were there for the day having a meeting of sorts.

From then on I saw where the money went and never bothered.

 

I contribute more than enough to charities and foreign aid via taxes - I don't feel the need to give any more to charity after that.

 

Medecins sans frontieres is my go-to for donations when I have any slack in my budget, and then like Shirty any shrapnel goes into collection tins.

 

Indeed, take all the health related charities in the UK for example, not a single one of them would be necessary if the NHS would do what it is supposed to do.

First you have NHS contributions deducted from your salary, then when you actually need the NHS you end up in the care of a charity.

 

I don't often give to charity, primarily for the reasons listed in the posts above... If I do give it's typically to a charity such as the Great North Air Ambulance or the RNLI... I do also contribute to distributed computing initiatives such as F@H and BOINC/WCG...

However a sure-fire way to ensure I wouldn't even give your charity the steam off my piss is to employ chuggers...

 

And the day that the NHS is adequately funded, it will.

Make no mistake: the NHS is the biggest charity in the UK. Staff donate unpaid overtime to it every day.

 

This is the main problem i have with charity, necessity is the mother of invention and in a lot of cases giving to charity (IMHO) removes the necessity for people to solve their own problems.

 

As has been mentioned, I don't give anything to a majority of the "charities" out there on the basis that most of the money is used to pay the big bosses crazy paychecks and pay for all their advertising. Its a trickle down, with the people that actually need the money being way down at the bottom.

The only charities I will donate towards are ones where I know they wil be put to good use:
RSPCA / Animal Shelters
Help For Heroes
Ambulance/Fire services

 

Where has all the billions poured into Africa either though foreign aid of charitable organisation gone? I am 60 and Africa seems to have the same problems now as it did when I was in my teens.

I see lots of fabulously wealthy African leaders with houses and cars and planes and wives that shop at the most fashionable stores around the world. I also see the same ads on the TV asking for three quid to allow someone to have clean drinking water. Why with the river of money poured into Africa are we still being asked for our cash to provide clean water when they could have built everyone in that continent their own fresh water lake.

I read an article that most of the money that goes in aid to countries around the world is never accounted for and never expected to be. But it does go to prop up pro British governments and British interests.

Closer to home we have the large salaries of the directors of various charities and we hear of only a small proportion of a donation actually getting to where the problem is.

So as a cynic I give little, I do bung 8 quid to the Macmillan charity but I had cancer and they were so supportive unlike the NHS plus it is their lottery so I have a small chance of winning some of it back satisfying the cynic in me.

 

I do give a lot to charity, but it's mostly the SPCA right here in Windhoek.

Since I am the chairman there for 2 years, I know where the money goes, and I know where the time spent goes (that's ROUGHLY 10-15 hours a week from me).
That's my biggest contribution, and I see both sides of that regularly (I have been called all manner of things, attacked in the streets for my involvement, threatened, etc. Worse, I understand why - it's because the SPCA is not a no-kill shelter, and some people can't handle that. I have also seen countless animals find the most loving homes, I have seen people do incredible things for animals, and know that side well as well.)

Other charities are somewhat whack (some, not all). I do support them every now and again (a few of them here in NAM are very reputable and controlled), and I refuse to support others (some digging into the Save the Rhino trust here reveals some very dirty underwear, for example).

 

My son's school is a registered charity and as they are voluntary aided, yes definitely. And MacMillan.

Those aside, NSPCC got my money occasionally, though less so since they started putting ads up on tv at prime time that clearly take victims who are watching it to a bad place. Made me wonder if my donations were paying for fundraising ads that were causing people pain - there are equally effective ways to raise funds without doing that. Refuge got more of my money after that.

The RSPCA did for a long time but not so much recently (not that much spare cash lying around, unfortunately).

H4H has had money from me periodically, as have the Royal British Legion, Erskine and Combat Stress. More recently Medecin Sans Frontieres. Comic Relief etc only get money through sponsorship collections from my kids or stuff happening at work, as others have mentioned, too much funding not going to where it should be.

IMO, funding is only lacking in the NHS because so much of what it does get is not being properly spent on the provision of healthcare.

 

I do contribute to various charities.

Governments can't be expected to fund every "worthy" cause, even if they could agree on the definition of worthy, without considerably increasing revenue receipts from us all to pay for it. So voluntary donation is the best way imo, each contributes to causes close to their hears.

When I worked on the front line at Cats Protection no-one was paid anything for the work they did, even the daily £ contribution from the charity for fostering (to cover food & litter) didn't cover the daily cost to the person fostering the animals. Every penny raised by the branch went on the welfare, support and rehoming of the rescued animals.

To those who are concerned about where the money might be going, assuming that's not just your excuse for doing nothing, do some research - it's not hard - then you can make an informed decision rather than make suppositions.

Look at charities' Report & Accounts and it will give you an idea of how much is being used for what, how much directly benefits the end recipients (whether people, animals, environment etc.), how much goes on administration, personnel costs AND executive staff etc.

Or ... if you have spare money ... just carry on justifying your position to yourself of being a selfish b******

 

That is the problem right there: one the one hand Africa receives charity money without any accounting for how it is to be spent, which makes politics there a desperate cut-throat race to the top to get one's hands on all that money. Meanwhile the IMF advises those countries to make good on their loans by heavily selling off their valuable mineral and agricultural resources to the developed world at knock-down prices; to strip their own country bare, rather than to invest that money in education, healthcare and decent infrastructure that would lift people out of deprivation and into a decent quality of life.

The result? Grossly corrupt, insanely wealthy tyrants supported by the West ruling over a starving masses who in desperation turn to piracy and extremist anti-Western ideology. Boko Haram welcomes new members.

That is true, and the clinicians' hands are frustratingly tied in this. A lot of money is wasted through insane bureaucracy and government interference. We are not allowed to spend the money more sensibly. But every day I see individual staff working unpaid overtime, doing things for patients in their spare time, and even paying for things out of their own pocket because frankly it is easier than trying to navigate the quagmire of requisition only to get turned down in the end.

 

Having provided IT support for one of the UK's biggest charities I can tell you they piss money away like nothing else.

Example: Dell CRT Monitor Stand - Dell Price $109.99

Just because they can - They have no use for it at all. There desks are huge. Times this by a few hundred staff...

Meanwhile the other end of the office is calling up relatives of deceased enquiring into where the money from there will is.

I kid you not "I'm sorry for your loss, We have a document here that says ### has left some money to ####"

I mean jeeze talk about breaking it in.

They also had a habbit of ordering in IT stuff from other companies with out telling their IT support.
I turned up one day to find a new server in the server room for video conferencing.
They have a Hypervisor box not 6 months old with plenty of room for VM's what the hell are they doing. That's probably another £2-5k on hardware alone.



Smaller charities I've done for for I feel make better use of resources.



Overall mixed bag, I won't give to any large charities but little ones with a genuine need I'm quite happy to gift.

Also anyone who can afford a TV advert - No.

/Rant

 

Any system that acts like an organism becomes self-sustaining; it acts to preserve itself rather than for the purpose it was originally created. In commercial business this is quite obvious: the business of business is to stay in business. The business of a charity likewise is to stay in business.