Cancer Charity - am I over-reacting?

ts_aly2000

Still tempted to stick by my personal policy here in respect to charities. I try to change things that are directly within my control, ie. helping others within close proximity, treating leapers (bad joke) like human beings. Gave 11p to a little old lady in a shop the other day as she didn't have the extra change when paying £4.11 (or something) with a £10 note.

This business of running, ahem, charities like telemarketing businesses I do not agree with at all.

We can do much more in the world by helping people directly that we're able to help, and in a dignified and respectful manner, nothing short of just being a plain friendly human being. Opportunies present themselves and when they do, that's us doing our little bit in the world.

Poppy9

Talksport last night was talking about Charities. They downloaded the Oxfam accounts and for their shops the takings were £62m. Of this only £15m found it's way to good causes the other £47m went on running expenses. This means for every £1 you spend in the Oxfam shop only 24p goes towards tackling poverty etc.

I think all Charities should have to boldly advertise how much in the £1 actually goes to good causes and how much goes on admin etc.

wobbley

ts_aly2000 wrote:

Still tempted to stick by my personal policy here in respect to charities. I try to change things that are directly within my control, ie. helping others within close proximity, treating leapers (bad joke) like human beings. Gave 11p to a little old lady in a shop the other day as she didn't have the extra change when paying £4.11 (or something) with a £10 note.

This business of running, ahem, charities like telemarketing businesses I do not agree with at all.

We can do much more in the world by helping people directly that we're able to help, and in a dignified and respectful manner, nothing short of just being a plain friendly human being. Opportunies present themselves and when they do, that's us doing our little bit in the world.

And if more people were like you then we wouldn't need so many businesses,,,,ooops! - I mean charities.

Poppy9 wrote:

This means for every £1 you spend in the Oxfam shop only 24p goes towards tackling poverty etc.

And I would think that's one of the better ones !

Poppy9

wobbley wrote:

And I would think that's one of the better ones !

especially Xmas cards!!

JohalaReewi

Instead of donating to the charity big boys who have huge marketing budgets and spend lots on admin and mailshots etc., why not seek out a local charity who spend as little as possible on admin (they are usually run by volunteers) and use all the money as it should be. To help those the charity is set up for.

Saucepot

If you want your money to actually go to whatever deserving causes you think deserving, it's worth checking out the pension deficits of some of the bigger UK charitees. The accounts are public information.

Though worse than the mailshots, which are binable, are the charity botherers that hang round the shopping centers. I do my best to look as unfriendly, grumpy and unapproachable and poor as possible but they still think they can touch me for a DD mandate. I don't mind putting coins in a box but they have a right cheek.

juno

I volunteer at a local day hospice for the terminally ill, and they have to raise £70,000 each year themselves. They'd be delighted with £2 a month. Even £2 a year would mean a lot to them.

Brightness

I personally would rather send my donations directly to a local hospice/charity than a large countrywide one. I had a similar experience to UncleJoe's only with the RSPCA.

What really angered me though was that when I did have cause to ring the RSPCA for some help and advice about a dog that I suspected was being ill treated they informed me that unless I could prove ill treatment then there was nothing they could or would do. I cancelled my DD and now only give to local causes or the Dogs trust as they ahve a large kennels where I live.

UncleJoe_2

I'm also annoyed that they are sending me small mountains of mail (surely costing them money) and not taking any notice of my response. Is that where my £2 is going?

Got another one today!

mrcow

UncleJoe wrote:

Got another one today!

So I guess you've still not called them to ask them to take you off their mailing lists?



It would probably have been an even quicker process than logging onto here to have a moan about it! If you are upset about it, give them an opportunity to fix the problem!