Helping charities make the most of your money....

Raksha

I've been doing a temp stint at a world wide charity which helps people sponsor children in third world countries.

You would be amazed at the time and effort it takes the admin staff to trace payments which come in without enough details, so please always make sure your personal reference number is on the back of the cheque.

If sending gifts, make sure they are suitable for the country you are sending to - many African countries just don't wear socks for example, niether do they wear underwear (plus underwear isn't considered acceptable to be bought by a person outside of the family). Sadly gifts often go astray (customs?) and so never send anything of any great value. It also costs the charity to pay people like me to unwrap and check the suitability of gifts, so the quicker that can be done the better - while gift paper is lovely, it can take an age to get the parcel open without damaging the wrapping and seal it back up again.

Another thing we have to do, because of the number of gifts that go missing, is to delete any reference to them in any letter - so that lovely necklace may have been special to your Mum, but your sponsor child will never know, as if the reference has been left in, and the necklace 'dissapeared' they would be very upset.

Obviously, the charity will always forward your gift on, but something which is posted in the UK to catch the last day of first class posting, won't reach your child before Christmas. If you can't afford a donation AND a gift - please send a donation and put a little effort into writing a nice letter to your sponsor child - send photos of you, your family, where you live etc - the charities desperatly need money they can channel into their special projects.

Lastly, don't include any home addresses, email addresses or website addresses, as they will also be deleted.

HTH