What / Which is your favourite charity and why?

Seriously 😦
That’s appalling.

What a gross point of view

Likewise.

The Blue Cross. As i prefer animals to humans

Animal charities and anything to do with wildlife.

Charities which are abroad - how do we know where the money is going?
Charity starts at home.

Women’s Aid. Specifically buy a number of smallish denomination vouchers for Tesco etc and donate the vouchers to local Women’s Aid shelters. The women who need the support will get 100% rather than donating cash to a big charity which might use it for corporate hospitality etc.

RNLI. They have over 250 lifeboat stations and provide lifeguard cover for over 250 beaches in the summer. It’s a gigantic effort, building and maintaining boats, looking after the stations, providing training for extreme situations, etc. They get bad press for the channel, but they save lives at sea without judgement or prejudice. I think they are one of the best things in our country.

Sue Ryder Care. They run hospices and also offer bereavement support.

Anyone could need their help and support at any point in their life.

Lifeboats. I live on the coastline seen so many lives saved

I would advise anyone donating to air ambulance charities to check their financial statements first. Some year ago now but my local one had enough donations in reserve that they could run the charity for 3 years if all donations stopped. There’s only so much they can spend money on it’s not like a homeless/animal charity where they could keep expanding. Once they had 2 or 3 helicopters and enough money for the staff they couldn’t keep growing.

I know this from auditing them as charities can only hold so much reserves.

Shelter & our local Women's Centre. Nobody can function without a safe & secure home.

Guide Dogs for the Blind. It's hard to overstate how much difference they make to the independence of the service users.

Beira's Place is a private organisation, not a charity. It is entirely funded by JK Rowling and does not accept donations. There is no donation link on their website, and you should be cautious about using links on other websites. You might be donating to that website and not Beira's Place.

very small charities who don’t have big offices in London, treat their staff like crap and spend loads on advertising. (Rant prompted by friends who’ve had shocking experiences.)

I give to the smallest charity I know, the money goes a long way. (Mandy’s rescue a Guinea pig in Poole.)

Beira's Place - a women's refuge for victims of sexual violence. It should go without saying that it's for women, but for some it's the only female-only place they can get this support from.

Mine is a local autism charity. In our town, one Mum set up an autism support charity about 20 years ago now and it has grown into the most incredible place. It now has professionals like speech and language therapists and drama teachers employed full time there and helps autistic children up to 18yrs.

All levels. So much support for parents - they put on courses for parents. Organise trips and breaks for the kids.

My son is 26 now so he left 8 years ago. They helped him into supported employment and gave him a teen social life.

I don't know if any thing as good as that exists anywhere else in the whole of the UK tbh! (I am in Scotland)

I think a lot of towns have cafes and kitchens staffed by autistic adults.

But - autism every time for me just as it is close to my heart on a personal level.

2wish -they help bereaved parents. Also they find a quiet room on children's wards for newly bereaved parents to sit in when their child has just died.

contact (used to be contact a family)

Caudwell children

family fund

all help families with children with special needs

smile train - helps fund operations for children with cleft lip/palate.

Local mountain rescue (ad hoc)
Local hospice/air ambulance shops - donations of things and buy books
RNLI

Another vote for Medicins sans Frontieres. They provide doctors and medical care all over the world in conflict zones and disaster zones.

RNLI - selfless volunteers, from their own statistics most shouts occur at the London station on the Thames, i live in london. I think I read somewhere that they didnt want to be centrally funded because of the inevitable bureaucracy.
Whizzkids - provide motorised wheelchairs for children
Wateraid - because clean water is a basic human right
RSPB - protect, and advocate for, habitats and wildlife here in the UK, and abroad,

I meant I do donate not don't!

Not NSPCC - they defended a member of their staff who filmed himself wanking in fetish gear at work.

Not Macmillan - they only fund posts for 2 years but the post has to be branded Macmillan forever- so they person who helps you is funded by the NHS while Macmillan get the credit.

Not Oxfam - their staff sexually abused women in the developing world on a huge scale.

Actually probably not any big national charities, they all spend a lot of money keeping themselves in existence rather than on the cause. Obviously you need to spend on staff wages etc but do they all need to spend £100k a year renting big London offices these days when remote working is so simple? I support a local animal charity, a local womens charity and another small animal charity.

I don't donate each month to Fertility Network and Tommys.

The RNLI do good work but they won't stop sending me raffle tickets

Salvation Army was one of my favourite charities but I've now read they've associated with bloody Stonewall!