Real-life MMD: Should expenses count as donation?

The_Wise_One

All charities have costs and, unless they receive separate funding, those costs come out of donations received. Pay all the proceeds into your charity and submit your expense claim. £1200 is an excellent result so very well done, your hard work clearly paid off.

kitty-bite

It is absolutely not wrong to ask for your expenses back. Managers in charity shops are paid a salary.

Any charity would rather have the amount you have raised less your expenses than not have had your help and determination in the first place.

Well done for your hard work and your obvious concern go the charity but please do not allow yourself to be left short as a "reward" for doing something good for others.

YoYoY

Ask yourself what you would have done if you had spent £1200 on raffle prizes, ticket books, poster printing, fuel etc, and only managed to collect £50 in donations.

Hopefully that will help you come to an answer to your real-life Money Moral Dilemma

The_Aquapanther

People say they are going to the moon for charity! They have a fundraising target of £10m to reach!

6 months later they have raised that £10m!
Everyone goes on about how great they are, going to all this effort to get such a large amount for a good cause!

However that £10m is split out as £9,990,000 going to the company that are organising the trip, and £10k going to the nominated charity!!! :mad:

It’s great that people go to a lot of effort to raise money, but when they are doing it just to the trip of a lifetime for free then that is wrong.
If you want to feel good about yourself, then pay the trip out of your pocket and then put ALL money raised in as extra.

What we are talking about here is on a smaller scale, but the same principle applies.

Rant over!

onesixfive

"By the time we’ve collected all monies we'll have raised around £1200. I had to spend around £50 on raffle prizes, ticket books, poster printing, fuel etc on top of my donation"....

If all 20 of you took £50 there would only be £200 left!..thats if you collect all thats been promised.

Raffle prizes should have been begged or donated.
Posters could have been drawn instead of printed.
Ticket books bought at the local pound shop.
I certainly wouldn't be asking for fuel allowance.

Next time you'll know better....but no - please dont take it off the charity - I'm sure their need is greater than yours! ps: well done.

mrlouisgilbert

In the past i have organised gigs to raise money for charities and good causes, if I had to foot the bill for venue and pa hire i wouldn't be able to hold the events

pippinpuss

I have worked for a couple of charities & expenses were allowed/expected to be taken out.

The current charity I help out with allows me to claim petrol expenses but I don't because I consider that to be my donation.

akbrooker

There is no suggestion here that the event organiser used donations to pay for a freebie.

Do the other 20 people expect the principal organiser to pay for it all? If so, why?

On balance, I think you should take out the costs. Sponsors expect to pay: that's what the word means.

redmower3

Originally Posted by alwayswrite
I sponsored a walk for charity and did not realise I may have had the expenses for the 'walker' to do this in New York and I wondered if I would have had some of my donation used for expenses and if so why couldn't this walk have been performed in this country - so beware!

kitty-bite wrote: »

What has this got to do with anything?

@kitty..

The relevance of this post is to highlight the devious lengths that charities go to to raise funds.

For instance..look in any jogging/running magazine and you will see full page adverts from charities saying ..

What to run the <insert big city of choice> marathon?
If you can get sponsorship to the value of £1000 (about the right figure last time I looked)xxxx we will fly you to <city> and pay for you hotel.

So effectively the runner gets a free big race somewhere at the expense of friends/family. I wonder what %age is left for the charitable purposes?

tgroom57

I have absolutely no problem with your 4% expenditure to raise £1200. Ensure you make your accounting very clear to the charity (receipts etc)

I do wonder how many raffle tickets you would have sold if you said - buy your raffle tickets now! And by the way, can you donate the prize?

I can see many have said otherwise. I wonder what do they think of the people who stop you in the street to sign a direct debit for charity X (varies weekly) Do they think these people work for free / out of the goodness of their heart?