Charity

Pollycat

gadget88 said:

My wife was pressured into signing up to a charity lottery direct debit in a shopping mall. The leaflets mentions gamble aware and she’s already signed up to GameStop what would happen would they refuse this? I felt very bad as I got annoyed with charity worker but they are very pressuring has anybody else experienced this before and don’t these people work on commission? The charity in question we have a one off donation to two weeks ago. I’m not a fan of these lotteries? I phoned up to complain as we do like to give to charity but not in a pressured way in a mall? They don’t have these charity tins for one off donations anymore?

What response did you get to your complaint?

dumpster_fire2025

Ergates said:

molerat said:

A friend recently got chugged in a shop.  After they had signed up they got an e-mail from the chugging company on behalf of the charity

xxxxxxx Ltd is a professional fundraiser and is paid a fee for recruiting committed, long-term supporters for xxxxxxxxx (the Charity). 

This appeal is expected to raise approximately £6,350,000 in income over the next 5 years for the Charity. This will help the Charity to make a difference by helping people to prepare for and recover from crisis in the UK and around the world. 

The Charity expects to pay xxxxxxx Ltd approximately £2,800,000 (Notifiable Amount) for this appeal. The Notifiable Amount is calculated by multiplying the relevant fee (taking into account the gift amount) for each supporter acquired by the number of new supporters the Charity is seeking to recruit and adding any data management costs.

So the chugging company are getting 44% of the amount raised.

And yet, despite obviously being well aware of this, the charities still choose to use such companies.

Why do you think that is?

Perhaps the point is that people (wrongly) think that the chuggers are volunteers and the charity gets all the amount they're donating. They don't realise that the chuggers are paid employees of a third party and will be taking a large chunk of their donation.

That being said most people also don't understand how much of the donated amount that the charity gets goes to funding lavish CEO pay among other things. One of the mains reasons why I refuse to donate to most charities now.


Wonder how much they'd get if every ad had to include something along the lines of "Donate just £1 today and we promise we'll give 10p towards feeding a poor random African man" in a prominent fashion both audibly and visibly.

eskbanker

dumpster_fire2025 said:

That being said most people also don't understand how much of the donated amount that the charity gets goes to funding lavish CEO pay among other things. One of the mains reasons why I refuse to donate to most charities now.

I think it's a common complaint within the sector that many donors have a desire to retain control and seek guarantees that their money will go only to front-line activities, but out of curiosity, which ones do you feel are transparent enough about overhead levels?

dumpster_fire2025

eskbanker said:

dumpster_fire2025 said:

That being said most people also don't understand how much of the donated amount that the charity gets goes to funding lavish CEO pay among other things. One of the mains reasons why I refuse to donate to most charities now.

I think it's a common complaint within the sector that many donors have a desire to retain control and seek guarantees that their money will go only to front-line activities, but out of curiosity, which ones do you feel are transparent enough about overhead levels?

None.

I probably should have left out the "most" part.

Ectophile

dumpster_fire2025 said:

Ergates said:

molerat said:

A friend recently got chugged in a shop.  After they had signed up they got an e-mail from the chugging company on behalf of the charity

xxxxxxx Ltd is a professional fundraiser and is paid a fee for recruiting committed, long-term supporters for xxxxxxxxx (the Charity). 

This appeal is expected to raise approximately £6,350,000 in income over the next 5 years for the Charity. This will help the Charity to make a difference by helping people to prepare for and recover from crisis in the UK and around the world. 

The Charity expects to pay xxxxxxx Ltd approximately £2,800,000 (Notifiable Amount) for this appeal. The Notifiable Amount is calculated by multiplying the relevant fee (taking into account the gift amount) for each supporter acquired by the number of new supporters the Charity is seeking to recruit and adding any data management costs.

So the chugging company are getting 44% of the amount raised.

And yet, despite obviously being well aware of this, the charities still choose to use such companies.

Why do you think that is?

Perhaps the point is that people (wrongly) think that the chuggers are volunteers and the charity gets all the amount they're donating. They don't realise that the chuggers are paid employees of a third party and will be taking a large chunk of their donation.

That being said most people also don't understand how much of the donated amount that the charity gets goes to funding lavish CEO pay among other things. One of the mains reasons why I refuse to donate to most charities now.


Wonder how much they'd get if every ad had to include something along the lines of "Donate just £1 today and we promise we'll give 10p towards feeding a poor random African man" in a prominent fashion both audibly and visibly.

On occasion, I have gone online and looked up the accounts of the charities I donate to.

In most cases, about 70% of the money raised is actually used for charitable things.  The remaining 30% is a mix of admin costs (which will include the CEO's salary) and the cost of fundraising.

Fundraising will include paying the chuggers, posting begging letters, magazines for members, and so on.

Aylesbury_Duck

While I have some sympathy with the view that some charities spend too much of their fundraising income on CEO and other senior salaries, the other side of the argument is that as those charities have grown and supported more beneficiaries, they've become large businesses with all the managerial, administrative, legislative and compliance obligations and costs that come with that. Expecting someone to be a CEO of a national, multi-million pound charity on a salary of £50k is fanciful thinking, yet there's an automatic resentment of larger salaries, without the proper understanding that the postholder needs to have all the attributes that a CEO of a commercial entity has.

There's probably a sweet spot where a charity is big enough to be established and resilient while doing their good work, without too much cost, but if demand for their service grows, they face the difficult choice of turning away additional beneficiaries or growing and incurring the additional costs that usually go with that.

Claddagh_Noir

I donate blood!  That, I feel is enough as it comes out of the goodness of my heart... literally! I went to a health food shop and they asked if I wanted to donate to charity as part of the checkout process, I told them that I give blood, that's more than enough! 

eskbanker

Claddagh_Noir said:

I donate blood!  That, I feel is enough as it comes out of the goodness of my heart... literally! I went to a health food shop and they asked if I wanted to donate to charity as part of the checkout process, I told them that I give blood, that's more than enough! 

Charitable activities are always a matter of individual choice of course but I don't think I've ever heard of giving blood as being considered an alternative to making financial donations to charities!

Aylesbury_Duck

eskbanker said:

Claddagh_Noir said:

I donate blood!  That, I feel is enough as it comes out of the goodness of my heart... literally! I went to a health food shop and they asked if I wanted to donate to charity as part of the checkout process, I told them that I give blood, that's more than enough! 

Charitable activities are always a matter of individual choice of course but I don't think I've ever heard of giving blood as being considered an alternative to making financial donations to charities!

Me neither.  I consider giving blood to be a duty rather than a charitable act.  Most people know a relative or friend who's had to receive blood at some point, if they haven't received some themselves.  I believe that about one in four of us will need blood at some point in our lifetime, yet only one in 50 of us donates.

The idea that it's a substitute for charitable donations or deeds seems bizarre, I'd never even contemplated it being so.

ThumbRemote

dumpster_fire2025 said:

Ergates said:

molerat said:

A friend recently got chugged in a shop.  After they had signed up they got an e-mail from the chugging company on behalf of the charity

xxxxxxx Ltd is a professional fundraiser and is paid a fee for recruiting committed, long-term supporters for xxxxxxxxx (the Charity). 

This appeal is expected to raise approximately £6,350,000 in income over the next 5 years for the Charity. This will help the Charity to make a difference by helping people to prepare for and recover from crisis in the UK and around the world. 

The Charity expects to pay xxxxxxx Ltd approximately £2,800,000 (Notifiable Amount) for this appeal. The Notifiable Amount is calculated by multiplying the relevant fee (taking into account the gift amount) for each supporter acquired by the number of new supporters the Charity is seeking to recruit and adding any data management costs.

So the chugging company are getting 44% of the amount raised.

And yet, despite obviously being well aware of this, the charities still choose to use such companies.

Why do you think that is?

That being said most people also don't understand how much of the donated amount that the charity gets goes to funding lavish CEO pay among other things. One of the mains reasons why I refuse to donate to most charities now.

I usually find that people who claim they avoid giving to charities because of 'lavish CEO pay', salary levels, money going overseas or some other reason are just looking for an excuse to justify the fact they wouldn't give anything anyway.