"Donating life"

[^woody^]

Is anyone else sick of these bags that get pushed through the door for your old clothes? It seems that now they are accepting almost anything.

Now is it me, or are these really charlatan charities that give little to charity, while lining the business owners own pockets? I only ask, as I know of two similar enterprises whose unconnected owners (oddly from different previous USSR Balkan states) are doing quite well thank you very much out of other people's charity.

Or are you motivated by the sad image and are grateful to be helping "Treating Children with Cancer"?

 

[blightymam]

Nah, never put things in those bags, take everything to charity shops myself. I just don't trust the bags as like you, heard some bad stories about them.

My other half used to use the bags for rubbish tho - said they lined bins nicely - He's a bugger!

 

[Newboy]

Being a sceptic, I tend to check who I'm giving anything to

http://apps.charitycommission.gov.u...teredCharityNumber=1132491&SubsidiaryNumber=0

 

[motorbiking]

You might as well donate directly to the projects listed, and save 40% - It looks very much like a shell

 

[HawkEye244]

I don't think anyone has much integrity when it comes to money. I also think a lot of these charities/good causes (in a better world) would be funded by our tax money, I thought that's why I paid tax? -- to keep children out of poverty and to help fund life saving treatments, protect the environment and run all these services we depend on? Seems the government is continually pulling the rug but demanding we pay it more and more and taking less and less accountability. Hopefully in my lifetime I'll get to see a better system come out of all this. At the moment it's pretty bleak and it leaves the door wide open for unscrupulous types looking to profit from dire circumstances.

On the whole though there are many charities that work very hard with very little and they need money from somewhere. I think good and well meaning people are in a tricky spot, because they have to maintain some kind of competitive advantages over other charities in order to stay alive, this is where all those tin/bucket shakers and nuisance cold calls come in, and of course these people need to feed, cloth and house themselves as well. You can't run on empty. Can we really blame them ? Personally I think it's time we started looking differently at our whole societal system, use technology and innovation to come up with workable and viable solutions to our societal and economic problems, maybe then money will become redundant as we will live in a society without class mostly maintained by machines where basic human needs are a reality to every person on earth.

I still give to charities occasionally though and I give money to homeless people even though they are probably buying drugs or drinking reality away with it. This is the world that is.

 

[motorbiking]

The best you can hope for is efficiency in what they spend the money on. Donating to a charity that donates to another charity after deducting its cost seems rather inefficiennt. Particularly when the turnover is circa £30k and there are fees of 8k and costs of 4k.

 

[HawkEye244]

The best you can hope for is efficiency in what they spend the money on. Donating to a charity that donates to another charity after deducting its cost seems rather inefficiennt. Particularly when the turnover is circa £30k and there are fees of 8k and costs of 4k.

This is what the BBC do and it is indicative of the overall trend. If you look into how the money is funnelled, they take the bulk donations and they allocate a certain percentage of it to their nominated cause, the rest is held in their bank to collect interest.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5ShlK3DH4J6XyLMXXTw355h/frequently-asked-questions-faq

Latest accounts here : http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/tv/pudsey/CIN_Appeal_Accounts_YE15_v7.pdf

The accounting habits of the charity came to light in 2014 (I believe) when the DM ran an article claiming the BBC is stashing huge sums of public donations. Source : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...investment-portfolio-instead-handing-out.html

Notice that on the BBC website they have posted a question attempting to address this : ''I've seen a media article claiming that you're holding back funds? Is this true?''

Notice that's not technically how the question is answered:

''No. BBC Children in Need does not hold large sums of uncommitted funds.'' -- not what was actually asked.

So they admit to holding money, they say it is released slowly to charities over 3 years (fair enough) but they do technically hold funds and they do use those funds to make interest which is not allocated to charitable causes I would assume?

''All other costs not attributable to grant making are covered by investment income and gift aid''

When you look into those 'other costs' that's when things can look rather worrying. It's the bells and whistles syndrome you see in most large organisations which you allude to there.

''Our Chief Executive’s salary is £115,000''

Is another red flag, in my opinion. Although nobody should be expected to work for nothing, except the majority of the volunteers of course..

Having said all that I think this is a commonality amongst large fund raising organisations.

You see managers on quite large sums of money but the bulk head of the organisation is run by those recieving no pay.

We know that Terry Wogan recieved payment to host the programme so it's likely to assume many other host's do as well, and there's a whole infrastructure that goes into making the programme. The cost of actually putting on the programme must be at least half a million pounds I would think, estimated guess?

It could be argued that without the exposure of children in need these charities would not even recieve a fraction of the funding that they do get, if anything at all. This is a fair statement but the same could be said about local authorities. Is it fair that certain services are not available due to 'funding' when managerial pay, bureaucracy and ineffciency accounts for a growing proportion of what is raised in revenue?

But yeah, I think most organisations like this do operate a sort of layer cake system where money is continually changing hands and everyone in the process of that is taking a little bit. I'm not saying it's bad I'm not saying it's good I'm saying that's the reality of it. Charities do function as businesses much in the same way that government does. That's an irrevocable truth.

 

[Deleted member 63160]

I was getting several every week. Sometimes one every day. I live in a very ordinary close in an ordinary house. Christ knows how many clothes they thought we got through! A little research revealed that the bulk of the ones I received were from a company called "East London Textiles". It appears they approach the charities, ask to use their "name" and in return give the charities a percentage of the profit. Quite a small percentage I believe in some cases. Perhaps some smaller charities approach ELT and get a very low "cut"?
I decided to have a play and email ELT. Initially I asked that they stop delivering the bags. Got a very apologetic reply and a guarantee of no more junk mail. I do have a no junk mail sign inches from the letter box but that was ignored. Despite several emails and promises to stop the deliveries they still carried on. For a giggle I sent a mail expresses my wishes that they no longer trespass on my property etc etc. I was informed that my house would be placed on the "do not deliver to list". Speaking to some of the next few guys popping the bags through showed that a) there was no such list and b) most of them couldn't speak English hence couldn't read my sign. Finally I requested an invoicing address, from ELT to return their bags to, should I continue to suffer trespass and unrequested mail, complete with a breakdown of costs for my time etc returning the bags. Funny enuff I've only received two in the last 3 or 4 months. Strangely they stopped replying to me too. No invoice address forthcoming.

 

[motorbiking]

its a good time to mail these out - most people will have a house full of crap from xmas and will want to clear out.

 

[Brigade77]

I've travelled the world, gone well off the tourist trail, been to some of the most deprived areas in the most deprived countries & have yet to see any so called charity actually benefitting a local community.

I particularly remember bumping into an Amnesty International rep in a hotel in Belguam India. He sat us down & explained in great detail how the big names like Save the Children & Oxfam were actually doing a lot of harm to some areas.

 

[HawkEye244]

I've travelled the world, gone well off the tourist trail, been to some of the most deprived areas in the most deprived countries & have yet to see any so called charity actually benefitting a local community.

I particularly remember bumping into an Amnesty International rep in a hotel in Belguam India. He sat us down & explained in great detail how the big names like Save the Children & Oxfam were actually doing a lot of harm to some areas.

I'm very interested to know more about this .. no details need be omitted

 

[Brigade77]

I'm very interested to know more about this .. no details need be omitted

I did once see a bright shiny extended Land Rover minibus carrying schoolchildren once. A 6 wheeler job that carried about 15 kids, all resplendant in their well pressed uniforms. Must've been a very expensive custom conversion, certainly not a standard chassis. It was bright red & festooned with the Save the Children graphics. The locals told me it was for the exclusive use of the school which taught the children of fee paying local government officials, senior police & millionaire businessmen.

The Amnesty guy was there helping out a local farming commune who having worked & toiled approx 40 acres for the past 20+yrs were now having it 'confiscated' due to a lack of an obscure permit. Nothing at all to do with the fact they'd turned worthless scrub into valuable arable land by extensive irrigation & natural farming techniques. He told us how these people faced the prospect of becoming virtually agricultural slaves to a new landlord to pay off their punitive fines.

We used to drive out from Belgaum where we were probably the only 2 white europeans in a fairly big city (I'm told it's very different now) to a factory site 30km's inland. The ghetto on the outskirts of the city was visually the worst living conditions I have ever seen. Where are all the charities operating ? 80km away over the mountain range in the state of Goa, which is paradise. It's a long haul flight holiday destination which us white skins can only really tolerate the temps in their winter (snort).

In fact, if you fell over in Goa different parts of your body would land in a different western charities compound or mission & the Red Cross would have bandaged your forehead before it hit the ground.

 

[HawkEye244]

I did once see a bright shiny extended Land Rover minibus carrying schoolchildren once. A 6 wheeler job that carried about 15 kids, all resplendant in their well pressed uniforms. Must've been a very expensive custom conversion, certainly not a standard chassis. It was bright red & festooned with the Save the Children graphics. The locals told me it was for the exclusive use of the school which taught the children of fee paying local government officials, senior police & millionaire businessmen.

The Amnesty guy was there helping out a local farming commune who having worked & toiled approx 40 acres for the past 20+yrs were now having it 'confiscated' due to a lack of an obscure permit. Nothing at all to do with the fact they'd turned worthless scrub into valuable arable land by extensive irrigation & natural farming techniques. He told us how these people faced the prospect of becoming virtually agricultural slaves to a new landlord to pay off their punitive fines.

We used to drive out from Belgaum where we were probably the only 2 white europeans in a fairly big city (I'm told it's very different now) to a factory site 30km's inland. The ghetto on the outskirts of the city was visually the worst living conditions I have ever seen. Where are all the charities operating ? 80km away over the mountain range in the state of Goa, which is paradise. It's a long haul flight holiday destination which us white skins can only really tolerate the temps in their winter (snort).

In fact, if you fell over in Goa different parts of your body would land in a different western charities compound or mission & the Red Cross would have bandaged your forehead before it hit the ground.

I suppose it is difficult to make sure all those in the chain have the right intentions, we just have to hope it gets to the right people. I'm sure the BBC are pretty much limited to this outlook as well.

Also it's impossible for us to assess and judge the outcome of our donations like we can here. If someone is saying there is a project or a scheme being run we want to see evidence of it, so charities/beneficiaries get held to account.

Overseas aid (I assume) requires a further degree of filtration before it gets to where it's supposed to get. I've heard a lot about how money generated in the original Live Aid concerts was used to fund military activity, much of which was directed at the general population. Perhaps there is a natural propensity for more money to be lost the further it has to get.

 

[Brigade77]

Also it's impossible for us to assess and judge the outcome of our donations like we can here. If someone is saying there is a project or a scheme being run we want to see evidence of it, so charities/beneficiaries get held to account.

Of the 100's of £millions raised for & donated to the various cancer charities over the years . . . why isn't there a single drug available that's patent free?

Some of these drugs are horrifically priced, a course of treatment can run into the £100 000's.

Whenever I've glimpsed into the world of charities it has always ended in tears. It is a very emotive subject, there is a lot of smoke blowing around & it is very very difficult to get a straight answer to a straight question.

 

[Belboz]

. . . why isn't there a single drug available that's patent free?

Because money talks