Most efficient charity to leave my money to 12 November 2014 at 12:30PM in Charities 27 replies 5.4K views

Mojisola

It's worth reporting any businesses behaving like that -

https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-charity
Report serious concerns to the Charity Commission, for example if a charity is:
not doing what it claims to do
losing lots of money
harming people
being used for personal profit or gain
involved in illegal activity

whitejohn

Mojisola wrote: »

It's worth reporting any businesses behaving like that -

https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-charity
Report serious concerns to the Charity Commission, for example if a charity is:
not doing what it claims to do
losing lots of money
harming people
being used for personal profit or gain
involved in illegal activity

I never even thought about it, it seemed to be fairly common when I was working and in those days I was not very street wise so didn't really understand or query it. Thing is, the tax people already know about them as they declare it. One was investigated whilst I was doing a job there but they found no problems and it definitely was a business making lots of money and not giving anything away.

Savvy_Sue

I know some people think that the 'most efficient' charities don't use paid staff, but I think it depends what the charity does. And yes, I work for a charity. We use a lot of volunteers, and we couldn't operate without them, but we also employ paid staff.

There's a small local charity which doesn't use any paid staff. DH would like to volunteer with them, but they're not easy to contact, because they're only 'open' when they're offering the service they provide. At which point, they're busy offering the service rather than able to talk to potential volunteers.

PlutoinCapricorn

WhiteJohn, have a look at this thread, Oldtoolie's post #8 may be of particular interest:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3612519

dzug1

whitejohn wrote: »

I found loads on either side which I thought was strange. But now I remember that when I used to visit some of my customers they mentioned that they were registered as a charity for tax purposes. As they were actually a business then they would give away 0% One was a college, some museums, sightseeing, tourism and historical things. Certainly not all charities are equal.

Not really sure I follow you. Charities do not exist just to 'give money away' - they can exist to run something like a museum as you say. So their funds are spent on running the museum rather than being 'given away' to some extraneous cause/person.


I'm sure some go beyond the limits - but certainly not all.

lisyloo

What charities have you found that don't give 0%?

Some charities exist to give training/information through vounteers and don't really deal much with money (except to book rooms and pay for stamps).
I've volunteered for a couple of charities that provide car & motorcycle training e.g. IAM/Rospa. They mainly provide training to make people safe.
Money is just used for meeting rooms/books/leaflets.

You can't necessary judge the good that charities do by looking at their accounts.

I donate to local charities that I know personally, where the staff take either no wage or only a living wage.
I don't mind contribute to their living costs if they are literally living on a shoestring in a caravan.

Savvy_Sue

lisyloo wrote: »

I don't mind contribute to their living costs if they are literally living on a shoestring in a caravan.

That's a bit harsh. Are you saying that as it's my choice to work for a charity, my children should have been brought up in a caravan?

Remember, some people working for charities have good, sound, professional qualifications - social workers, accountants, doctors, lawyers, teachers - and they use their qualifications in their work. If the charity wants the best, they should be prepared to offer a comparable salary to what people could earn elsewhere.

It does depend what the charity does. A lot start with enthusiastic and well meaning amateurs (ours did) but find over time that in order to do the best work and achieve the best results, they need to pay staff to do some of it.

As I've said before, we couldn't do what we do without volunteers, but equally they couldn't do what they do without a backbone of paid staff and a good infrastructure.