Do you still give to charity?

Castleman

hethmar wrote: »

Have to agree with some comments - when you have been working at some of the big charities, I shant name names, you realise how little of the money actually goes to the causes. They rely heavily on free volunteer workers and the management are paid a LOT. Its not so much a vocation with a lot of the people, more a cushy and prestigious career. Sorry, but thats true in my experience. Ive worked as a volunteer for 25 years now in various charitable organisations and its the small, grass roots ones which are the most genuine.

I disagree - I've seen that the big international charities that are often the good ones as they are always in the spotlight and there are always people complaining that too much goes to management so they are always trying to improve. Much more so than the smaller ones where a higher percentage of each £ given goes to mgmt/salary/admin costs. Efficiencies of scale etc.

What do people agree that management staff should get in these organisations - remember these are full time, experienced staff. Anything up to £85,000ish for top positions is reasonable in my book (depending on the size and scope of the charity). You want quality, you have to pay for it. You see it in many industries time and time again. £35,000 for the jobs some of these people do is nothing.

As I've said before 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing, people that just use 'high admin/mgmt costs' as a reason not to give (at all, rather than to specific charities) are just using it as a cover for the real reason they don't give.

wymondham

I have recently stopped giving to charity. I did pay the NSPCC on a direct debit for £5 a month. For that I received three glossy letters a month asking for more money - that would be most of my £5 used up!

So stopping this I consider myself to have saved them the money and expense of writing to me. I did email them asking them to stop writing to me, but they refused!!!!

cattie

I make regular payments via direct debit to a couple of charities close to my heart & have no intention of reducing them unless times become dreadfully hard.

I also beling to a couple of local animal welfare charities & always enclose a donation along with my membership fee when my membership is up for renewal.

Along with others here, most of my unwanted items are donated to charity shops to help them raise funds & the books I buy from them are returned once read so they can be sold on once more.

theoretica

Castleman wrote: »

As I've said before 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing, people that just use 'high admin/mgmt costs' as a reason not to give (at all, rather than to specific charities) are just using it as a cover for the real reason they don't give.

Hear, hear! I believe in choosing whom to donate to carefully, which is why I give in sizeable sums to a few charities and only a trivial pound here and there on impulse. If you can find one charity you wish to support and believe in that is enough.

That said I do not plan my charity giving to be evenly spread over my lifetime- some now and more when I am rich or die is my plan!

webtalk

I work for a charity. I ahve a lousy salary. I do a lot of unpaid overtime. I don't claim all my mileage.

That unpaid overtime and unclaimed mileage is my way of giving to charity.

Then I give used clothes and unwanted household items - oh, and christmas presents.

macaque_2

webtalk wrote: »

I work for a charity. I ahve a lousy salary. I do a lot of unpaid overtime. I don't claim all my mileage.
That unpaid overtime and unclaimed mileage is my way of giving to charity.
Then I give used clothes and unwanted household items - oh, and christmas presents.

Charity bosses set a poor example by taking large salaries and extravagant expenses. I just don't see how can they justify this when so many charity workers contribute their time for nothing or minimum wages.

People's outlook on life has become warped by greed. They have a distorted view that you have to pay high salaries to get good people. As we have seen with the banks however, high salaries don't attract good people. They attract greedy people. Some of the most intelligent and able graduates in the country take up jobs with the Church of England. The head of that Church is paid circa £50k. In the world of science and engineering, you can employ a good PhD for under £30k.

stevetodd

webtalk wrote: »

I work for a charity. I ahve a lousy salary. I do a lot of unpaid overtime. I don't claim all my mileage.

That unpaid overtime and unclaimed mileage is my way of giving to charity.

Then I give used clothes and unwanted household items - oh, and christmas presents.

You should calim your mileage then donate it back to the chairty, then the charity can claim the additional 28% gift aid offered by the Gov. Or donate 80% back and keep 20% and you both gain from the current position.

an9i77

Rather than donate to charity, instead of buying something new I try to buy clothes, cds and videos (there are still a lot of em about, glad I hung on to my video player) from charity shops that way both I and they benefit

SingleSue

I can't really afford to give money to charity but I do give my time to a local small charity as a volunteer.

The charity I volunteer for have to fight for every penny they get, none is held back from those they serve, salaries for those who work there are minimum wage or just a little above.

Money is not wasted on admin, paying a fatcat at the top (it is literally a small operation) or rent..in fact they have to rent out the building to others to enable them to continue to support those that need their services.

Without their service, I and probably many other parents, would have gone completely bonkers and possibly have lost their children due to the stress of having disabled children.

Edit - Having served on their committee both as a parent representative and now as a (sort of) member of staff, I have been able to have access to view all their financial reports, bank balances, grant applications etc (in fact I made some of the applications myself as part of a sub committee), all funds were used for the good of those using the service, for example, more upto date play equipment suitable to disabled children (not cheap!), extra staff to cope with the numbers requiring help, snacks, nappies, spare clothes, upkeep and maintanence of the building, bringing in professionals to advise parents, helping parents fill in forms, being advocates and to keep fees low for the user (it was £1 per family per session regardless of how many children attended).

sh856531

I only really give money to foreign charities working in the likes of Africa etc. I've always felt that the UK has more than enough wealth and resources to solve its on problems. For example, we could address homelessness at a stroke if we really wanted to. We just choose not to for one reason or another.

When the banking crises started I really very nearly cut my contributions to Oxfam and Care international even though my job was relatively secure. It was almost instinctive just because everyone was talking about how bad things were going to become. But I thought about it for a while and came to the conclusion that even if I did lose my job, I would still be a thousand times better off than the poor !!!!!!!s who don't know where their next drink of water is coming from.

So with that in mind I actually increased my donation by 10% and will keep it at that level until I actually lose my job - something that I don't think will happen any time soon.