charity ? too fussy by anybodies standards

linmad · 24 April 2009 at 6:51PM

i have recently had to clear my late mothers home of furniture, lots of the larger items went to family but i was left with 1.bedroom suite 1.dining room suite 2.tv cabinets and occasional tables.
one charity told me they wouldn't take anything over 3ft wide, but worse than that was heart foundation they told me they wanted everything, sent two young men out who then said they would only take what they wanted and if i wanted everything taken they would charge me £350.00 for a "house clearance " which was laughable as the furniture was in one room and the rest of the little council bungalow was empty !! i wonder if some people rush off to the "hole in the wall " give them cash and it ends up being a very profitable sideline for these nasty people !
i sent them packing and went to YMCA , who were great, took everything , were very grateful, and pleasant to deal with.
perhaps i should have known better--- when an aunt died and heart foundation learnt they had been mentioned in the will, they contacted me by letter (as executor ) demanding a copy of the will, when i complained to them that i found the letter distasteful i was told that they don't always get what they are entitled to ! i took this as a slur upon my honesty and informed them that solicitors were dealing with matters on my behalf and they would get their bequest as and when the solicitors had done their job !!
they eventually received something in the region of £11,500 and i have often wondered who had a nice shiny new car at head office !
my advice is steer clear of heart foundation and help age concern and ymca, two organisations who seem to know what the word "charity " really means.

Barneysmom · 24 April 2009 at 6:54PM

That's quite shocking isn't it?
So it's not only distant relations who beconme vultures when someone dies.
After reading this I'd rather have a big bonfire than give to HF.

Pennylane · 24 April 2009 at 8:39PM

I am very careful about which charities I support now. I was a volunteer in a charity shop for about 12 years and some of the stuff that got wasted was dreadful. :rolleyes: Admittedly some of it was for Health & Safety reasons - like we were not allowed to sell used cycling helmets, riding hats etc. Then we weren't allowed to sell any food items (but often we got sealed and packeted posh jams etc) then it was knitting needles then it was childrens shoes (in case they damaged their feet) and so it went on.

Someone I know used to have a B & B business and they retired. They had quite a lot of sheets and pillowcases, brand new and still in their wrappers. He took them direct to a charity which provides holidays for disabled people & their families. By coincidence someone else I know worked there and while they accepted them, they were disposed of because they did not match the colour scheme!! That is just so wasteful.:mad:

I now do one sponsored charity event each year for a cancer charity and also buy some hay and sacks of feed for a small local animal charity and give it to them direct. People can shake collecting tins at me all they like, but that's how I do it now!!

Pennylane · 24 April 2009 at 8:47PM

I also have a friend who works in a charity shop and someone donated a virtually brand new lightweight wheelchair. Lovely condition and she reckoned it was around £650mark new.

The shop manager said they couldn't sell it because they didn't have room. My friend thought this was terrible and offered to take it to the local cottage hospital. A couple of nurses looked at her blankly and didn't know what to do. Then she saw a porter she knew and he said he'd deal with it.

A few weeks later she saw him and asked what happened to it and he said he was told to dump it. Remember we are talking about an As New item not a rickety old ancient thing, otherwise she would have just dumped it herself. :mad:

Wolfsbayne · 24 April 2009 at 9:01PM

I had a similar experience when I was clearing my uncle's flat after his death three years ago. A local christian charity shop selling furniture came to have a look and told us it would cost £400 'house clearance' even though it would be sold in the shop. Eventually, we gave items to the neighbours and the housing association said they would deal with the rest.

Savvy_Sue · 24 April 2009 at 9:17PM

I would just like to put the charity's point of view.

It's surely better for a charity to only take what it knows it will be able to deal with than to take things which it then has to pay to dispose of. Having said that, I agree they should be clear up front about whether there will be a charge for collection - I know one of our local furniture recycling projects charges a small amount to collect electrical items, and all of them are quite 'fussy' about what they will take.

As for the bequest, it's tricky, because charity trustees are required to ensure that they get what's been promised: if they DON'T 'pursue' bequests that they are aware of they could be in breach of their duty as trustees. This can lead to unfortunate publicity, eg there was a case on the radio where a house hadn't sold so the value of the estate hadn't been finalised but the charity was actively pursuing a legacy, and were suggesting that the executors should pay it themselves rather than wait for the estate to be wound up fully.

I think it's partly down to the manner in which things are communicated. If it's badly done, it will leave a nasty taste for a long time ... but it's unlikely that there would be a direct link between a shiny new car at head office and a particular bequest!

linmad · 26 April 2009 at 8:45PM

i would just like to make clear that the referance to the shiny new car was my way of saying that the behaviour of some of the larger charities makes one wonder how much of the money they collect goes towards keeping big expensive offices and staff comfortable.
as to the furniture--i walked past our local ymca shop today, not only do they have the goods i donated displayed in their window, one of the items the other charity turned its nose up to already has a "sold " sign on it ! not bad going as they have only had for 2 days !

Savvy_Sue · 26 April 2009 at 10:17PM

I'm really glad to hear your things are selling! Actually, I find that the 'character' of charity shops varies quite markedly, so if there's something I particularly want I'd start in a shop I thought would specialise in it. Those which didn't take the items probably know what does and doesn't sell in their particular shop.

linmad wrote: »

i would just like to make clear that the referance to the shiny new car was my way of saying that the behaviour of some of the larger charities makes one wonder how much of the money they collect goes towards keeping big expensive offices and staff comfortable.

sorry, you're going to think I'm picking on your posts, which isn't really my intention.

I know that the main point of a charity is achieving its charitable aims, BUT sometimes that is done best with paid staff. And the larger the charity, the larger the number of paid staff it's likely to need to run efficiently. And if you have staff, they tend to work better if they are kept comfortable ...

I work for a small but growing charity, and I know there's a concern that we have an increasing number of 'back office' staff. However, we now have three times as many 'front-line' staff as we used to, and our budget has doubled in the last couple of years because we've started a new, major project which can't be done on the cheap.

We can just about cope if one of the computers goes on the blink, but if we replaced them all BEFORE they broke, it would save a lot of time and grief. So, do I put new computers in the budget every few years, or have a panic every time one of my colleagues says "My computer's not working!"?

That's just one example of what I'm having to think about. I sometimes think our trustees are too good to us as staff, but on the other hand our turnover is very low, and rarely because someone doesn't like working for us.

I'll get off my soapbox now ...

oldtoolie · 26 April 2009 at 11:50PM

If I recieved such rude and insensitive communications regarding my relative's legacies, I would write a letter of complaint to the chief executive and/or the chair of the trustees at the charity in question.

More than 1000 charities (including the British Heart Foundation) are now members of the Fundraising Standards Board. This requires members to respect their donors and to have a complaints procedure. Should that not satisfy, you can take the complaint to the Fundraising Standards Board for an independent review. www.frsb.org.uk/

Regarding donated goods -- it goes both ways. At the charity where I work, I've had people shout at me and slam the phone down when I politely said we couldn't use the items they were offering to us.

Wouldn't it be nice if we would all just be nice?

kazzah · 3 May 2009 at 10:58PM

I am the chair of a very small charity and even thought it might be my "legal responsibility" to chase up a legacy, i can assure you, I would rather resign than send our a letter as rude as the one metioned previously.
We have been given stuff that possibly isn't what we would choose to have donated, but we try a variety of ways to use it- we will sell stuff on E bay, use items for tombola prizes - donate to other charities on some occasions
there are LOTS of charities out there, like our little one, which runs entirely on voluntary staff with no paid workers - so for small ones like us- we LOVE donations - there is usually someone somewhere who can benefit!

purplebutterfly · 3 May 2009 at 11:32PM

My sister's boyfriend was volunteering at the local Cancer Research shop when he was told to throw 4 bin bags full of books into a skip because they don't sell anything under £2 and these books were only worth about 99p each.

Across the road (less than 1 min walk away) there is a BHF, Oxfam, Red Cross and Barnardos. When he said he would take them there instead of binning them he was told that it was against regulations to "help the competition" :eek:

Needless to say he took the books, distributed them evenly and quit working for the cancer shop.

It is just disgraceful that any charity would deliberately wish to prevent another from raising money - even off things it doesn't want!

charity ? too fussy by anybodies standards

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