Do you remember the days when charity workers stood in the street with their collecting tins, or they put little envelopes through your door and came round for them a few days later. Half the time you couldn't find the envelope and you had to do a quick rummage through your loose change to put in a spare one which they always had ready. It was for a good cause and they weren't getting paid so you didn't mind. I used to shake a tin myself on Rag days.
How things have changed. Those little envelopes have given way to large ones containing lengthy sob stories and a direct debit form. The genuine volunteers with their tins are still out there but now they have competition from a new breed of professional fund raisers who earn commission on the money they collect.
Now I regularly put money in collection tins and nothing from this house goes in the bin if there's half a chance that it will sell in a charity shop or jumble sale but this lot really get on my t*t ends. It's not the method of payment that annoys me so much as the fact that they are telling me how much I ought to pay!
I can see why they do it. A single £10 debit is worth a hundred 10p coins in the tin - and it's repeated month after month because most of us are too lazy to cancel direct debits. The really worrying thing is that there are old and confused people out there who might think these begging letters are bills and pay up without bothering to read the small print.
The final straw came when a charity person rang the doorbell asking for money to support Japanese students. She had an official looking identity card and I've no doubt it was real but she didn't have anything resembling a collection tin. When I queried this she pointed to her handbag. Now this was a bit unorthodox but I'd been a student myself so I set off in search of loose change - but she beat me to it. "You can give as much as you like" she said "Ten pounds, or even just five." That was the end of the line. I told her in no uncertain terms that nobody was going to tell me how much I should donate and sent her packing.
I know two different people who refuse to give anything to a very large and well known charity (not the RSPCA) because they've heard that too much of the money disappears in administration costs. Fund raisers' fees perhaps? I don't take anything to the ***** shop now (it goes to Marie Curie or the Cat Protection League instead) and I have a simple rule. All begging letters telling me how much I ought to pay go straight in the bin!
Does anybody else think that these money grubbing tactics are giving charity a bad name?
How things have changed. Those little envelopes have given way to large ones containing lengthy sob stories and a direct debit form. The genuine volunteers with their tins are still out there but now they have competition from a new breed of professional fund raisers who earn commission on the money they collect.
Now I regularly put money in collection tins and nothing from this house goes in the bin if there's half a chance that it will sell in a charity shop or jumble sale but this lot really get on my t*t ends. It's not the method of payment that annoys me so much as the fact that they are telling me how much I ought to pay!
I can see why they do it. A single £10 debit is worth a hundred 10p coins in the tin - and it's repeated month after month because most of us are too lazy to cancel direct debits. The really worrying thing is that there are old and confused people out there who might think these begging letters are bills and pay up without bothering to read the small print.
The final straw came when a charity person rang the doorbell asking for money to support Japanese students. She had an official looking identity card and I've no doubt it was real but she didn't have anything resembling a collection tin. When I queried this she pointed to her handbag. Now this was a bit unorthodox but I'd been a student myself so I set off in search of loose change - but she beat me to it. "You can give as much as you like" she said "Ten pounds, or even just five." That was the end of the line. I told her in no uncertain terms that nobody was going to tell me how much I should donate and sent her packing.
I know two different people who refuse to give anything to a very large and well known charity (not the RSPCA) because they've heard that too much of the money disappears in administration costs. Fund raisers' fees perhaps? I don't take anything to the ***** shop now (it goes to Marie Curie or the Cat Protection League instead) and I have a simple rule. All begging letters telling me how much I ought to pay go straight in the bin!
Does anybody else think that these money grubbing tactics are giving charity a bad name?
