personal experience of good and bad charities to support please

[60andsomething]

If you have been on the receiving end, please give a bit of information about which charities you think money should go to, and why, if you can, and also, which charities are not full filling their aims, in your opinion, and money should not got to

Thank you

I support WaterAid and the Samaritans.

Are these good choices for my hard earned scraps? Are there better choices?

Thank you

I also have a monthly DD to WaterAid. No idea whether the're good or not, but I'm happy that the funds are going where they're needed. I also have a monthly DD for Maternity Worldwide, which helps provide maternity care in low-income countries. I get a Christmas card from them every year to thank me for my donations. I chose these just after we had our final DC, recognising that we'd been very luck to be in the UK and have the health and social provisions that we have. I'm happy to keep on with these for now.

How did you come to choose your 2 current charities?

I think both those do excellent work.

One that was the best when I had cancer was SomethingToLookForwardTo which provides meals / days out / UK holidays to families of those suffering with cancer for treatment and up to a year.

WaterAid, I have lived in a community that benefitted from this, but that was decades ago - I hope they are still doing good work now. I find it unacceptable that there are children without drinking water in this century!

Samaritans, I suppose because they seem to do a good job, from what I hear. It seems effective use of money. I know where the money is going, and I think it is a good use of it. As far as I know

That sound interesting

I am a big fan of Women for Women International.

Every year, I sponsor one woman from a war-torn country to take courses in business skills, finance, confidence-building.

You can see the impact on these women's earnings, their role in the family and their security here
https://www.womenforwomen.org/our-impact

The big one: on average
EARNING AND SAVING MONEYWomen’s daily earnings more than doubled, from an average of $0.80 at enrollment to $2 upon graduation. Their savings also grew from an average of $13 to $88

So in a year they will earn back roughly what it cost me to sponsor them. But then they keep those skills and increased opportunities for the rest of their lives.

I can write (online portal) but there is no big push and it doesn't feel intrusive. I was a bit uncomfortable with sponsoring children though it is a good thing.

Each women I've sponsored has had lots of children. Most were also young widows. After a year they graduate and I sponsor another. So I feel that while families are benefiting.

WaterAid is an important charity and on my list if I get richer! We will always need the Samaritans. So your choices look good to me.

I would always recommend researching the smaller local charities in your area which are doing things like supporting homeless people, disabled people, domestic violence, etc.

Larger charities do some great work but there are often massive inefficiencies in the way they are run, and with the best of intentions they can become bureaucratic like many larger organisations do.

(I know this having worked for one myself).

I would always choose local charities first, they often make a huge impact in their communities, are run by people who really care and are careful with resources.

In terms of receiving end, I had help from Shelter after a friend was made homeless following domestic abuse.

They gave us all the general help and support. Then they told us precisely how the specific council we needed to target would try to trick us out of her entitlements, and how to prevent that. I was really impressed.

My last one for today would be that if you have ever had a family member die in a good hospice it's hard to under-value the work they do.

Echo this. Hospice's do such amazing work and often only recognised when you need them as no one wants to think about death.
Their work is vital and there should be more of them.

Again echo supporting small local charities. Big charities tend to be management heavy and spend a lot on fundraising and marketing rather than on their core charitable activities. I support a charity near me that only spends 1% of its income on running costs

I understand why people like small local charities and I support one.

I would be sorry if everyone restricted themselves to small local charities because sometimes the big ones need the big overheads.

You aren't going to get aid to Palestine, medical help to warzones, research to cure cancer etc without that kind of overhead.

There's also the question of how far your money goes. If a woman is earning about $20 a month in a poorer country, my £20 a month for a year can transform her life with something like Women for Women.

My money doesn't make as much difference locally. The same donation funds about an hour of play therapy a month. That's worthwhile too.

I really believe that there is room for all sorts of charitable giving and that only small local is a missed opportunity. But any giving is great.

Local hospices are always worth supporting. I also found Marie Curie amazing when my first dh was terminally ill with cancer. They run hospices and employ nurses and nursing assistants to deliver direct care and support.

I am always very dubious about Macmillan because they don't employ the nurses they train once they've trained them - the NHS does. The training isn't all that either because we had to deal with them in the care homes and they didn't ever recommend anything other than what we (qualified nurses) were already doing. I did palliative care for 30 years and it's mainly common sense and compassion with some knowledge of symptom control through medication and management of bodily functions amidst decline. Also supporting loved ones, something which a decent nurse should be doing anyway.

The amount of money they raise is disproportionate to the service they deliver - no hospices, hands on home care etc. I reckon it's all a massive income generating scheme, but people donate - 'cos cancer. Some individual families might have had the odd good experience or useful advice, but that doesn't explain the massive amounts of money they raise.

If you are purely interested in effectiveness (rather than emotional connection) these organisations look at charities in terms of the impact per £/$ spent https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/funds/effective-altruism-funds?utm_source=eafunds

https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

I read something by the Effective Altruism people once that said your money will have more impact overseas both because of how much further a £ goes in other countries, and because lots of other people will donate to Macmillan, other cancer research etc (they are big, advertise etc and get disproportionate funding while other charities struggle to get funding for their cause). It's not an approach to charity for everyone but it was an interesting perspective to consider.

Macmillan pay their nurses' salaries for the first three years in post, @whywonttheyeattheirfood , with the agreement that the NHS trust fund the role afterwards. So each nurse costs them well over 100,000 on salary costs, and they use that to get a commitment from the health system to keep the number of specialist nurses high.

They also do lots of things - including direct grants to cancer sufferers - apart from training and funding nurses.

I suspect they were set up when there were fewer specialist nurses in the general system? Charities do need to make sure they are still relevant but Macmillan seem okay to me.

Macmillan does provide counselling to people with cancer, 6 sessions via BUPA, and was the way to get it without a 6 month NHS delay (which isn't much use if you've just been diagnosed to be told wait 6 months). There are small grants for those on very low incomes from Macmillan. Maggies also provides services. A lot of people criticise Macmillan and think they are making lots of staff cuts (150) but found them OK. I just found the days out charity more useful, counselling all it could say was yes life is rubbish now, sorry. Whereas days out gave you strength to get through the next stage and was good for kids as well.

My parents were bowled over by the support from Macmillan when my Mum had cancer. She got:

• lounge in the hospital with cake/coffee etc and a volunteer- comfortable place to be whilst waiting between appointments
• advice on benefits/finances
• ”Feel good” wellness session offering advice on things you can do to help alleviate side effects- so sleep, diet advice but also advice for women worried about losing their hair/looks etc.
• Counselling for both my parents as they were struggling to deal with it, including hypnotherapy for my Mum.

Mostly she appreciated the sense of community- she met other women going through the same thing in these places and she is still friends with them now.

Larger charities have paid staff (as they should) so their overheads are always going to be higher than volunteer-run organisations.

I think the Charity Commission are pretty hot on charities which are not fulfilling their aims so I don't necessarily think that's a huge problem.

Just choose the causes which matter most to you, and let that inform your charitable giving.

I know first hand that Water Aid does great work in Nepal around periods for women and girls.

Another charity that I’ve never seen mentioned here is Gig Buddies, an organisation that supports young people with disabilities to attend gigs with their peers.

I support several small local charities where I can see the good they do, where they have properly accountable trustees/management, etc.

The only "big" charity I support is the RNLI because, again, you can see the good they do on a local basis (we live near a dangerous bay), and as far as I can tell, they've not fallen down the rabbit hole of being overly politically motivated nor paying obscenely high wages to management, etc.

I support Centrepoint as I've had positive experiences of working with them professionally, they ran an excellent homelessness service for some young people I worked with.

I used to work in the charity sector. Definitely avoid any cancer charities & oxfam

Place marking. I’ve been donating to Trussell Trust and Women’s Aid.

why avoid cancer charities? I am alive due to cancer research charities, and also, had a lot of support from Mcmillian and breastcancernow

I support the Brooke, which deals with working horses and donkeys etc in developing countries. These animals are often treated very badly with lack of understanding of their needs. The Brooke seeks to educate the owners on good animal care, provides vetinary treatment and trains locals to do the treatment. So it's a win win situation for both the owners and the horses etc.

We support a local group for young carers, as my DS had some support from them when he was a child.

Its not a charity but The Ocean Cleanup is clearing the Pacific garbage patch, and also keeping local rivers clean.

https://theoceancleanup.com/