Firefighters Charity

mcc100

I wasn't sure on which forum to start this thread so decided on this one as it has more than it's fair share of knowledgeable posters.

Recently bright yellow collection containers labelled 'Firefighters Charity' have started to appear at recycling collection points and outside fire stations.

Having never heard of this charity I googled it and noted that the income for the financial year 2009-2010 was approximately £9.2 million.

Staff salaries were approximately £3.4 million (£3.9 million including pensions and social security costs) which strikes me as being a very high percentage of income.

There are certainly comments on the web regarding high salaries within the charity and wondered what other posters think.

nearlynew

The last thing any charity wants is a solution to the problems that they are campaigning for/against.

Most are little more than lobby groups that spend most of their donations on staff wages.

leveller2911

nearlynew wrote: »

The last thing any charity wants is a solution to the problems that they are campaigning for/against.

Most are little more than lobby groups that spend most of their donations on staff wages.

Very true and many will pay professional fundraising companies £millions ......I was shocked to find "The Dogs Trust" employ professional FR companies and thay also paid 7 staff over £130k a year and around 80 staff over £70k a year......

Many of our large "Charities" are no more than businesses......I would ask people who want to give donations/monthly DD etc to go for small local Charities where you know most of your money is spent "on the coal face"

I donated £10 per month via DD and was annoyed (to say the least but don't want my post deleted) to find that they paid between £80-180 to the fundraising company to sign me up.It took around 18 months for any of my donation to actually do any good apart from boost the account of the PFR company..

chewmylegoff

leveller2911 wrote: »

Very true and many will pay professional fundraising companies £millions ......I was shocked to find "The Dogs Trust" employ professional FR companies and thay also paid 7 staff over £130k a year and around 80 staff over £70k a year......

Many of our large "Charities" are no more than businesses......I would ask people who want to give donations/monthly DD etc to go for small local Charities where you know most of your money is spent "on the coal face"

i used to audit quite a lot of small local charities, and in my experience they represent the worst "value for money". large national charities typically spend a far lower % of their money on fundraising and admin costs. the worst culprit i ever saw was a medical charity in north london which spent nearly 90% of its income on administrative costs, and most of that was staff costs, and, err, audit fees. as a result of that experience, i would never give money to a small local charity, as it's just wasted on paying someone's salary.

vivatifosi

Anyone considering giving to charity should have a look at the Charities Commission charity lookup, which enables the books for UK registered charities to be investigated:

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/ShowCharity/RegisterOfCharities/AdvancedSearch.aspx

Whenever I'm called or stopped in the street by a charity, I always ask the people involved if they are chuggers and politely decline if they are.

StevieJ

Didn't someone on here say that US charities spend around 95% of their income on expenses, (presumably mostly marketing) and think that is a good deal.

Mr_Mumble

A lot of the staffing costs are for the recuperation and therapy centres (76 people employed compared to 14 for "generating funds"). They look okay to me. Even the defined benefit pension scheme (a red flag - most givers will get far worse pensions!) is relatively small and most staff get a contributory pensions.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

mcc100 wrote: »

Staff salaries were approximately £3.4 million (£3.9 million including pensions and social security costs) which strikes me as being a very high percentage of income.

There are certainly comments on the web regarding high salaries within the charity and wondered what other posters think.

I think you need to have a closer look before being struck

iB1

I can confirm that the FireFighter's charity exists as they are based in the same building as me! They do have a lot of staff (not saying that's a bad thing) and seem to promote lots of charity place running events such as marathons, climbs etc. etc.

blueboy43

vivatifosi wrote: »

Anyone considering giving to charity should have a look at the Charities Commission charity lookup, which enables the books for UK registered charities to be investigated:

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/ShowCharity/RegisterOfCharities/AdvancedSearch.aspx

Whenever I'm called or stopped in the street by a charity, I always ask the people involved if they are chuggers and politely decline if they are.

You're full of useful info!

Thanks

blueboy43

Mr_Mumble wrote: »

A lot of the staffing costs are for the recuperation and therapy centres (76 people employed compared to 14 for "generating funds"). They look okay to me. Even the defined benefit pension scheme (a red flag - most givers will get far worse pensions!) is relatively small and most staff get a contributory pensions.

You'd have to wonder if they need 3 people paid over £110k for that size of charity though - not a tough sell, 128 employees and £10 million income.

Defined benefit pension scheme

Contributions by members £2k

Closing Obligations £1510k

Nice