h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My personal fav charity is Oxfam
Large charities are quite strictly monitored by the Charity Commission so someone knows where the money is going. The same is not true for small ones in all cases.

*All* charities are governed by the Charity Commission. I didn't mean to imply that the money was going into someone's back pocket, rather that your worthy £2.50 may go to pay the wages of an employee rather than the refugees/drought victims/cancer science/cute cuddly animals (delete as appropriate) that you thought would be the recipient of your hard-earned. If it's a small, local appeal, then chances are that the people doing the fund-raising ain't getting paid for their effort.

Both points accepted and if its a local charity that you take an interest in you're right but there are many small charities that are virtually moribund but have an income and still pay honourariums to officers. I do find the increasing professialisation of big charities annoying. I'm 100% with you there

Hey, BC, that's roughly where I came in, suggesting that charity begins at home! i.e. find something local that actually affects your community, because then that's a way of binding you into the community. WHich is so lacking these days. In fact, IMHO, it's *easier* to give to a big corporate charity than to bother to find out what's important where you live.

Actually I was probably being completely unfair to small charities. I now remember that it was a big problem a few years ago but that the Charity Commission really tightened things up and took a close look at some of the charities that had ceased to actually do anything charitable. It was probably only a minority (although thats still too many) even then

Then again I'd also argue that doing something in/for your local community is not really charity, its being part of the community. Not that its any the less commendable for that.

I sponsor a child in the 3rd world.

Monthly donation to Greenpeace.

And worked for and still support the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education.

Thats interesting about the professionalisation of charities - I run one, and I don't often get asked to be less professional!

The majority of our work is done by volunteers - but volunteers are more effective and efficient if they are mangaged by a paid employee (who is always in the office to answer the phone/e-mail, sort problems immediatly etc) Its also far more efficient to pay an experienced fundraiser to write effective applications to grant making trusts for large sums of money, than to ask 40 volunteers to do door to door collections for a week.
I've got better uses for the skills and dedication of my volunteers, which will mean we can do far more work in the community. If I use some of those funds to give professional training and support to those volunteers, we can provide an even higher quality service to the community - plus the volunteers feel appreciated and valued and work even harder and stay even longer etc etc. I'd rather spend my volunteer afternoon working with people in a community centre or whatever, using new skills etc than traipsing round in the cold asking for money - I'd be more likely to carry on volunteering anyway!

So although the money people donate gets spent on fundraising and management, which sounds really dull and wasteful ('office core costs!') it is actually more effective, in terms of what our beneficiaries receive in the short and long term.

As you can imagine, I get really annoyed at people not wanting to fund our core costs! (my salary and office!) Charities are expected to be as professional as businesses and the public sector in terms of (for example) health and safety, data protection, child protection, employment (and think of all that entails - training, long-term sick leave etc etc and because salaries are generally lower, employees expect to be treated better than elsewhere) - but there is this expectation that income is not supposed to be spent on any of that! grrrr!

ok rant over . . .

My charities: the Red Cross, the Cancer Council, the National Heart Foundation and the Flying Doctor. The Country Fire Service isn't a charity, but they do get their share of donations from me.

Marj,
Just picking up on Professionalism of Charities.
When my Mother retired, she worked in a couple of Charity shops, to fill in her week, as she had moved to a smallish village, and felt it was a good way to meet people.
One of the first things that struck her was the way that the shops worked like conventional stores, ie:- good merchandising, and product rotation. What really surprised her, was the way Head Office would dictate window design, so that last week was purple, this week is pink, next week will be yellow, etc. This meant that stock would be held back for the display.
They also had sales figures, and if they ween't met then HO would want to know why. Competitive? you bet.

I buy the Big Issue. That's it for money (I don't have much, okay?) Though I occasionally buy things from charity shops.

I 'donated' 8 months as a full-time volunteer to The St Elizabeth's Centre, which provides residential care for people with epilepsy and learning disabilities. When my volunteering was up I took a job there. So I reckon that counts as giving to charity.

http://www.stelizabethsappeals.care4free.net/home.htm

If I had more money I'd donate to Learning Disabilities or Homeless charities.

D

I have a direct debit set up to donate money to Cats Protection every month. I also give to The Endometriosis Society and Cancer Research.

It has always struck me as bizarre that we give to the charities that affect us personally. In other words - if we ever need help from them we are effectively funding ourselves!

I [am also naive enough to] believe that some of the money I spend on the lottery every week goes to good causes (although what they might be is out of my control and frankly some of them are not what I would normally support)

I have recently managed to get my employer to donate to RNID because they gave a lot of out staff a really good deaf and disability training day for free.
Blackberry Cat - I used to work for Oxfam and there were a few disgruntled employees who felt that the publics' donations weren't always used in the best/most appropriate way.

happyhappygirl

my mother works for Oxfam and I've done the ocasional bit of volunteer work
I guess I support Oxfam because I don't believe charity does just begin at home
Were the disgruntled employees unhappy because they disagreed with Oxfams campaigns or because they felt money was being wasted?

I donate to the PDSA, I also have done house to house collections for them. Animals mean a lot to me, so I am always donating to one charity or another. As for people charities the heart foundation and NSPCC are ones I donate to. There are quite a few different charity shops by where I live, so I often drop in to buy things or donate goods.

I have worked (as a paid employee)in the not for profit sector for more years than I care to remember. I currently run a local scheme of a national charity recruiting and training volunteers that go and work with families in crisis. We are part funded by the local borough (we take referrals from social services, health visitors, community mental health teams etc) and also by trust funds, donations from the public etc. The core funding that people are griping about is necessary for luxuries such as heat, light, an office, indemnity insurance... need I go on?

Although in an ideal world all monies donated to charity would be spent directly on whatever the cause is, in the real world staff need to be paid (poorly I can assure you, with few or no extra beneftits), and running costs met. Many staff working for charities put in extra unpaid hours and don't claim all expenses etc. Core funding is incredibly hard to raise as are any unrestricted funds. If you donate your money for a specific purpose, and state that when you make your donation, it will become restricted funding and cannot be touched for any other purpose by the recipient.

Finally... If you had ever seen the sort of returns that we have to complete for the Charities Commission or even the forms when applying for funding from companies and trusts, you would be a little less suspicious of what goes on behind the scenes... we account for every penny, report on monitoring and evaluation, have more policies and practice guides than you can shake a stick at, not to mention reporting to our unpaid management committees/trustees etc.

BTW, I donate by direct debit to Greenpeace & The MS Society as well as cash donations to various cancer and childrens charities.

There are so many good causes out there that it is hard to choose where to give money, but choose we have to because we can't all give to all of them. These are my three pet ones;

I had nasal cancer a couple of years ago, which is quite an unusual cancer and was something of a surprise to my ENT surgeon. When I rang the helpline run by what was then Imperial Cancer Research, the staff were quite wonderful and were able to give me all the information that my local hospital didn't have and re-assure me about my care. For that reason, I give money to Cancer Research UK by DD each month. I don't know how else to thank them for their support.

I also buy a little local charity magazine called 'Link' and the profits from that are divided up among many and varied charitable organisations in East Anglia.

The other charity I always give to is Comic Relief. I think it is a good cause but again I have a slightly more personal reason for picking this particular charity. I used to have a younger brother called Christopher who wore his red nose to work all day long for the very first Comic Relief. He died in 1989 and I give money to every Red Nose event in his memory.

If someone I know asks me to sponsor them for any charity event I always do but I don't go out of my way to give money to charities other than the three above.

Liz
~

hear hear to mrs the wife . . .
We've just photocopied every receipt over £25 for a £35000 grant, to sent to the funders to show what we've spent it on.

Blackberry cat - Money was being wasted, goods donated by the public didn't always seem to get where they should of. Middle management being overpaid, Money being spent on working out where the money is being spent. We were made redundant in the end.
Happy

happyhappygirl
no but it doesn't match what I've heard about Oxfam from people who work for it or my own admitedly limited experiences