The Dogs Trust......

leveller2911

almond wrote: »

hi
so i would like to know i have been giving £8+ a month for past few years to dogs trust how much is going to the dogs? hope the answer is all of it

Probably all of it now, can't say for the first 12-18 months.Direct debit paid to the Trust but they probably paid the PFR company around £100 or so for signing you up.....Shocking IMO not to be open about where your/my money went.......

almond

leveller2911 wrote: »

Probably all of it now, can't say for the first 12-18 months.Direct debit paid to the Trust but they probably paid the PFR company around £100 or so for signing you up.....Shocking IMO not to be open about where your/my money went.......

thanks feel sick i did this for my daughters birthday present thinking we were helping dogs , well dd is getting stopped tomorrow and i will put the money in the bank for them.

leveller2911

almond wrote: »

thanks feel sick i did this for my daughters birthday present thinking we were helping dogs , well dd is getting stopped tomorrow and i will put the money in the bank for them.

I would normally give someone the benefit of the doubt but they just won't give me any straight answers, TBH all I have been told is almost word for word the same as Laurier(Dog Trust) post on page 1.......

I know 4 people who all feel the same as me ,all paying monthly but I guess we are small fry and the Trust wouldn't really miss our donations..

fantasia322

Could i just add having a little insider knowledge, these agencies also run campaigns called 'reactivation' contacting lapsed supporters to ask them to sign up again. They will go in at slightly lower amounts or maybe go for quarterly dd but they get paid just the same, if you do cancel, contact the charity and make use of the 'opt out' of being contacted again, and also opt out of the 'direct mailings' that they send to tug at the heart strings.
If you opt out they should refrain from contacting you with immediate effect. I would also want the name of the marketing agency so you can opt out of their data records. because if you have been with 1 charity, you can be contacted by the same agency to try and sign you up elsewhere. Either that or join TPS

hethmar

Haarlem wrote: »

Just a couple of points from your post:_

1. You don't have to be a charity to take advantage of the tax back via Gif Aid.
2. Some organisations giving grants will take into account "gifts in kind" (in your case volunteers time and expenses) establishing a value in £s, and matching this with actual cash.

You really should establish a financial structure for your organisation. It really woth the effort especially in the present financial climate of the country.

Thanks for that, but we are such a small group and all spread over the country (as the dogs are moved to rescues all over the country) that it would be very difficult for us to have that sort of structure.

We mostly use our own money (out of our pockets) donations plus bootfairs, raffles, auctions that sort of thing - apart from the actual active group members, other donations are odd one offs usually when people have adopted a dog through a rescue and found out we saved him from the pound originally. Im sure that people have looked into this and found we cant get the tax back, but if you say we can, I shall report back on that.

Thanks for the info re organisations giving gifts in kind - do you know which these would be please as we have scoured various data bases in the past trying to find charities who offer grants like this? One volunteer in particular has driven up to 600 miles a week transporting dogs/arranging rescue places and not taken a penny for expenses, bless her. I guess if she were working for one of the large charities she would be on £30k a year!

fantasia322

http://www.turn2us.org.uk/grants_search/a-z_of_charities.aspx

A-Z of organizations Hethmar, hope that helps, I havent looked at it, but nothing ventured etc.,

almond

morning all i have posted on dog's trust facebook page asking for them to let us know what happens to the money we give via dd.
Just thinking back to xmas my partner took a call from dog's trust while I was out , they wanted to thank me for the money I was giving and how it was helping. They rang a few days later and really wanted to know if i wanted to give more money. What i think now is at that time I was just coming to end of they commision so by increasing it would have started the whole cycle again. I just hope i am so wrong

Dogs_Trust

Hello everyone, it is Laurier again. I hope it's ok that we're back to answer some questions. We e-mailed [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL] for verification. We wanted to answer some things that have been raised, but if we are out of our bounds please let me know and we will delete the post.

Face to Face fundraising is the bedrock of our support. We currently run 17 rehoming centres in the UK and one in Ireland which look after 16,000 dogs a year. New rehoming centres are planned for the near future. Additionally, we neuter around 50,000 dogs a year and undertake a national youth education programme. Without face to face fundraising (our largest source of income) this would simply not be possible - we would have to stop building new centres and consider closing others down. Quite simply, face to face fundraising is a lifesaver and stopping it would have terrible consequences for dogs. There simply are no alternatives which will provide income on the same scale. Any judgement on the efficacy of face to face fundraising should be based on this measure – does it enable the charity to make a meaningful difference to its beneficiaries.

We do pay fundraisers to recruit new supporters and make no apologies for doing so. Clearly, as the donations are collected by Direct Debit instalments, it takes time to recoup the money spent on recruiting, but for a typical supporter, this takes less than a year. The majority of supporters will then continue to support in the years ahead.

As regards salaries, we pay our staff in line with what charities of a comparable scale pay. The success of the organisation in recent years would not have been possible without employing quality staff performing to the highest standards.

Again, if you have any further question, do not hesitate to get in contact with me. As we are unsure still if I can post my e-mail address on this thread, you can contact me through the Contact Us form on our website. Please use my name (Laurier Nicas) in the subject line, and it will be forwarded to me.

Thank you.



Official MoneySavingExpert.com insert:

Many thanks to Laurier for responding to questions on here. As all organisations are only given permission to post in specific circumstances now we've asked Laurier not to post again. If they feel a statement needs to be made one of the MSE Team will do that once only but Laurier has already given a substantial reply. If you have further questions specifically for them please do follow the contact route Laurier has described on the Dogs Trust website.

Andrea

fantasia322

almond wrote: »

morning all i have posted on dog's trust facebook page asking for them to let us know what happens to the money we give via dd.
Just thinking back to xmas my partner took a call from dog's trust while I was out , they wanted to thank me for the money I was giving and how it was helping. They rang a few days later and really wanted to know if i wanted to give more money. What i think now is at that time I was just coming to end of they commision so by increasing it would have started the whole cycle again. I just hope i am so wrong

Having worked for one of these agencies, I think it will be them that contacted you on behalf of Dogs Trust. The campaign where they contact you for more money is called an 'upgrade'. Just politely tell them that you are giving as much as you can comfortably afford, and then tell them you want to opt out of being contacted either by telephone or letter (better still contact Dogs trust direct and tell them). All charities that respect their donors have an 'opt-out' policy.

Lauriet I do have great respect for your honesty, but you should also realise that donors do have concerns about the way they are recruited and these concerns do deserve to be addressed. I also think you should be honest and tell these people which marketing agency is working on behalf of your charity. To keep sidestepping this issue makes it look like you are avoiding the question.

It would'nt be hard to find out if people investigate,
There is also the issue of F2F fundraisers not accepting less than an £8 a month donation.
I realise this is set by the agency that employs them (justified by saying that anything less than that means it takes longer for the charity to recoup the money).
But a person can go onto a charity web page and set up a dd for amounts which are less than £8.
It makes the charity look greedy, and makes some people feel that there money is not good enough.
Also these agencies target people who are already giving, with 'upgrade campaigns'. Which is bad practice just to try and maximise donations. Its also a known fact that the attrition rates from F2F are very high. People sign up to get rid of the chugger and then cancel very quickly or within 3 months.

hethmar

fantasia322 wrote: »

http://www.turn2us.org.uk/grants_search/a-z_of_charities.aspx

A-Z of organizations Hethmar, hope that helps, I havent looked at it, but nothing ventured etc.,

Many thanks for kindly looking that up but I believe its one of those we looked at before and relates to individual's needs rather than group activities like ours. But most kind of you :T