charity ? too fussy by anybodies standards

Valli

imajica wrote: »

And on a lighter note after my mammoth rant: to all those charity shop workers - what is the worst thing you've had donated? My own personal favourite is a hamster cage with the dead hamster still in it.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
sorry!

Ms-Pacman

eslick wrote: »

but you didnt pay business rates for the property you ran the business from, which in turn resulted and probably not in this case but the shop paying sky high rents and thus forcing other small shop keepers rents up. One of my family lost his business because the landlords of a local shopping centre got in charity shops in on high rents when the other shop keepers rents were up for reviews even after going to a special appeals process it was found in the landlords favour because the market rents had been forced up by the charity shops. Impact was that lots of the smaller traders couldnt survive but guess what the charity shops were still going. Oh and some of these shops were managed by professional managers on high wages.

Why should charities be able to take their rubbish to the tips for free at the end of the day like it or not they are trading as a business and as such shouldnt be treated any different.

sorry rant over.

we paid normal rent rates on a long term lease which surprised me and I wasn't having a moan about paying business rates for rubbish, just adding the facts that for bhf furniture shops when I worked there it was run as a full business and paid same rates as anyone else. I'm amazed it survived.

The other shops welcomed the new business as it brought new interest to the area and I got on well with all the small businesses which were all small traders. I can appreciate though that this is not always the case.

I left as the pay was rubbish and for the hours I worked as much as I loved it, I needed to earn more and left retail for good.

I titally understand the frustration of offering reat stuff then a charity saying no, but there may be good reason to the charity even if it doesn't make business sense to us.

On another matter and I'm sure its not neccessary appplicable here but I have seen on many occassions where had calls offering great stock to pay drivers to go out and find the items in appauling state.

To be fair though I did leave over 2 yrs ago and things do change and I have no idea how these shops are run any more.

Ms-Pacman

imajica wrote: »

I worked for 3 years in a Help The Aged as a paid staff member and this past year as a volunteer in a Scope and there are a few things in this thread that really upset me I've just come in from a totally exhausting day in a shop. My head is spinning and everything aches but i'll go back in tomorrow because I like to raise funds for the charity.


And on a lighter note after my mammoth rant: to all those charity shop workers - what is the worst thing you've had donated? My own personal favourite is a hamster cage with the dead hamster still in it.

your post made me smile, i worked in charity shops as a manager for first help the aged down in a place near eastbourne. Iwas there for 4 years and totally loved it. then I moved away and worked for shelter before being offered the opportunity to work in the new Bh|f furniture shop.

The worst thing I found in a bag was a container that contained what looked like mouldy mince, it was really bad. Funny thing was that was on a day my new boyfriend came to visit and helped out and his face was so funny! Amazingly 7 yrs later we're still together.

hunnybeanz

pineapple123 wrote: »

Was told many years ago from a reliable source that some (not all)charities only manage to give 20% of donation to the cause the rest is wages and admin etc. I found this shocking and hope that this no longer exists, but suspect it does.

I was told last year that this figure is 40% towards the actual cause.
Meaning the remaining 60% is wages,costs etc.

I think thats absolutely disgraceful. Surely there must be a way to get rid of/keep down those costs?

lynzpower

hunnybeanz wrote: »

I was told last year that this figure is 40% towards the actual cause.
Meaning the remaining 60% is wages,costs etc.

I think thats absolutely disgraceful. Surely there must be a way to get rid of/keep down those costs?

this argument always frustrates me to be honest ( not picking on you BTW!)

The fact is most charities are there to do good work.


I used to work for a leading childrens charity as a Assistant Social worker.

My wages were paid for - as was the rest of the team, social workers, family therapists, childcare workers and two managers over a team of 30 working 24 hours- we worked with very badly abused children and thier parents.

THIS is the wages hat people moan about... surely the main point of raisingf money for charities is to pay staff that can help.

Eg RSPCA, McMillan nurses, the CAB advisors and rents, support workers from Mind, crisis, shelter. Helplines and grants from help the aged. These are household names and we may well know someone who has used the services of these charities well know!!

imajica

I don't think these 40% type figures are true either. I am pretty sure I still have some paperwork setting out that the 70% of profits from the retail sector immediately went towards the services we provided, then a further % was held back for improving or expanding the retail sector where necessary so the amount spent on people's nice new company cars (as was mentioned earlier) can never have been as much as 30%.

When the 11 or so members of the Disasters Emergency Committee get together to raise funds for a particular crisis the amount passed on to the individual projects is 95%, of which the project is only allowed to use 7% and the DEC say they never use more than 5% for fundraising.

I don't mind these stats so much although I'm sure, like all those on the sofa football managers, we could do a better job at saving money somewhere

remembered_nights

Ms-Pacman wrote: »

your post made me smile, i worked in charity shops as a manager for first help the aged down in a place near eastbourne. Iwas there for 4 years and totally loved it. then I moved away and worked for shelter before being offered the opportunity to work in the new Bh|f furniture shop.

The worst thing I found in a bag was a container that contained what looked like mouldy mince, it was really bad. Funny thing was that was on a day my new boyfriend came to visit and helped out and his face was so funny! Amazingly 7 yrs later we're still together.

I still can't forget sticking my hand into a bag of donated clothes and pulling out a pair of extremely stained knickers... from a certain time of the month... what are people thinking???

GiveItBack

hunnybeanz wrote: »

I was told last year that this figure is 40% towards the actual cause.
Meaning the remaining 60% is wages,costs etc.

I think thats absolutely disgraceful. Surely there must be a way to get rid of/keep down those costs?

Most charities pput about 75% to the 'cause' that means that, for example a care charity that has to pay the wages of 100 nurses, well those hundred nurses are part of 'the cause', they're doing the caring.

Of course, the insignificant and unimportant things, like, the payroll team to make sure the nurses are paid, and the HR team to make sure they're trained, and the fuderaisers, to make sure there's money, well that's the evil, 'non-cause', 'admin' stuff, which pretty much makes sure the people at the end of the day get helped.

perhaps everyone should just work for free, cos I'm sure there are THOUSANDS of people out there who can afford to put in 60 hour weeks on a voluntary basis.


{Caution, this was intended somewhat sarcastically, but may have come across especially coldly - see signature}}

Hermia

remembered_nights wrote: »

I still can't forget sticking my hand into a bag of donated clothes and pulling out a pair of extremely stained knickers... from a certain time of the month... what are people thinking???

Eeeek! People are revolting sometimes. Do any of you charity workers think this situation has got worse recently? I only ask that because I wonder if it is linked to the change in rubbish collection. Where I live rubbish is collected once a fortnight and the bins are pretty small. Plus you can't just dump things at the local tip. They make you sort it into recycling which is not much good if what you want to get rid of doesn't fit into any of the categories. I see bin bags full of stuff left outside the charity shop at the end of my road and I do wonder whether people know it's rubbish, but don't have anywhere else to take it.

oldtoolie

Operating a charity shop is expensive no matter how you do it. Chairty shops get a few tax breaks but electricity, telephone, rubbish collection, shop fitting, and rent are much the same as any retail business. Add management and administration salaries, volunteer expenses, transport and more.

So a profit of 20-30% on turnover is a pretty good return.