Real-life MMD: Should expenses count as donation?

Thrifty1

I can't quite understand the attitude of some holier than thou people with this one. Surely it is a good thing that this person has organised an event that has raised £1200.

Lots of you are saying that if this person wasn't willing to suffer all the costs then they shouldn't have done it, where would that leave the charity? It would leave them £1150 worse off is where.

I see no problem at all in covering reasonable expenses, it's not as if the money has been used to pay for some exotic adventure or that the fund raiser is profiting. It is just the basic costs incured while raising a large sum of money for the charity being covered.

Ashagill

Torry_Quine wrote: »

I think it would be morally wrong to take your expenses out of this money. The people who sponsored others will have expected the full amout to go to the charity.

Completely agree with this.
My mum once climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, for cancer research. She must have spent a fortune on flights and the amount of gear to take with her, but honestly, she's a highly charitable woman. The size of the event really will effect how much you yourself will spend. If it's a bake sale, or a bring and buy the cost to you will be relatively little, if it's a mountain, the expenses will also be so.
And I think if it were you sponsoring someone else, you might be annoyed that you would be paying for their trouble. If you're good at PR and such you'd learn how to do things on the cheap and get free printing in return for advertising etc.

richie3846

I work for a large company and we regularly organise charity fund-raising events. We always use part of the money raised to buy the raffle prizes, or pay for raffle tickets, or any other items essential for the fund raising to take place. In fact, we calculate how much money we have to raise to make it viable. If it's not viable, we will try a different fund-raising idea. People in my organisation certainly don't feel guilty, after all many of the staff members aren't very highly paid, and the lower and middle management aren't exactly fat-cats! I think it's best to think of the finance side of it as a business transaction (i.e. not your own personal cash), with proceeds going to charity, rather than to make profit.

JooFox

I think you should be able to take 5% - 10% for expenses. With regards to anyone saying they assume all the money will go to the charity, it's important to remember that the big charity organisations have expenses and running costs. I've been to a business lunch with a charity before and they insisted on payoing for it as it was a business expense. I paid my share anyway as it felt dirty, the charity exec's didn't seem to be bothered though.
Anyway, I imagine the only people having a go about this are the ones who aren't raising money themselves.
In reality, you raised a lot of money for this charity, should you be out of pocket? Of course you shouldn't.

Well done, and I would be happy in the knowledge that if I sponsered you that some of the donation would go on supplies. If expenses aren't covered it will discourage more people and hence less donations overall.

It's not rocket science

Well done :beer:

milvusvestal

You should donate your expenses, too.

It might leave you a little out of pocket, but surely the whole purpose of the exercise was to raise as much as possible for the benefit of a charitable organization. Besides, you must have known you would incur expenses before you decided to raise money in that way. There's also the point that some people might think that you did all you did just to make a bit of extra money.

Surely you must feel good within yourself to have raised so much, so why not feel even better knowing you sacrificed a little of your personal wealth to help those less fortunate?

heretolearn_2

'I think you should be able to take 5% - 10% for expenses. With regards to anyone saying they assume all the money will go to the charity, it's important to remember that the big charity organisations have expenses and running costs.'

This is not the point. A charities running costs are properly accounted for and managed. Nothing is deducted from donations without it all 'going through the books'. To do so, would be mismanagement of funds, and possibly fraud.

If you want expenses for an event you are organising, then this needs to be agreed in advance with the charity then the full amount of donations given to the charity, and your expenses refunded to you as a separate matter, unless they confirm that you can take them directly (but that would not really comply with safeguarding of the charity funds, they should be requesting receipts etc and getting approval for payment according to their internal policies).

You really can't just help yourself to part of the donations. Once the money has been donated, it belongs to the charity and taking money out of donations on the quiet is no different to helping yourself to money collected by someone else, or from their bank account.

RunningMan_2

Of course an entirely separate debate is the cut taken by online donation systems, e.g. Justgiving...

Personally I think it's fine to take a small amount of genuine expenses out of the amount raised.

ifan.goch

So how many of you people saying that the expenses should not be taken from the donations would be prepared to give your time and energy free of charge, and pay for the event yourself. Answer truthfully. I'm sure there would not be many of you. And to those saying that £50 is not much to give up, how many of you actually give that much to charity? To those of you going on about gift aid, I would ask when was the last time you filled out a gift aid form when buying a raffle ticket. Get real.
I say well done for raising so much money for charity, and please do not let some of the pompous replies put you off from fundraising in the future. At least you have learned a few lessons from this experience which will be useful for further events.
And yes I would be happy for you to take your expenses from the money raised.

florere

If people who organise charity events cannot reclaim their expenses it will become difficult to find people to organise them, I suggest that you claim what you have spent but do not charge for your time

Take_it_like_a_man,_sonny

I would use what a friend of my father did. Each year he raised more for a charity in his shop. It was personal to him. I am talking well into five figures and the eighties.

One year he was invited to. Presentation to receive an award. Prior to the meeting was their AGM. There they discussed the property and investment portfolios. They also discussed their expenses for running such a show.

My dads friend did not take his reward, kept the money, explained everything and set about giving to local groups instead.

It is the same thing that the Windsor Walk has become. I did not pay an entrance fee in 1980, though its successor does. I am afraid that some charities have become commercial organisations themselves, some actually gloating in he misery their invasiveness does. All playing guilt trips, yet doing more harm then good. Was told that charity enables the rich to avoid paying heir tax.