To confess I don't donate to charity

[VAVAV00M]

Not because I'm evil, I just don't trust them.

The only 'charitable' things I do is donate to church, I'm brownie group leader, help out at the local stables and students who need very hard to get but needed work experience for my line if work.

Am I going to hell?

I've just been made to feel guilty by not donating to RND by peers.

I honestly won't donate until they have a list on the website showing every penny spent and where it ha gone.

Comfy you need to start backing up some of these claims of perks, bonuses, salaries in excess of one million pounds.

My charity pays less than the equivalent of public sector workers doing the same kind of job. No one has a company car but we do get to claim mileage - what a perk that is! No overtime. Ever. You just get to take the time back.

If I go on a residential trip with the young people I work with I get paid my normal week, despite working solidly. I can take the rest of the time back as owed in lieu however it's not physically possible to take it all back without being off for weeks which isn't going to happen, my service needs are more important.

We do get a few more days annual leave than moat people but that's only because it's cost neutral, no one is drafted in to cover leave.

So what perks?

Free holidays?

Who? Where?

What does the church do with your money OP?

'charity' is a big word though - every charity is different some big - so naturally with bigger expenses some small and with less staff

YANBU - you do donate - you donate time

it's not compulsory to give to any charity !

ps Comfy are you confusing 'charities' with 'banks' ?

i think YABU not even clothes to a charity in the high street? I give clothes and old toys to charity shops, whats not to trust. And i always put some change in people collection boxes, whats the harm? its not going to break the bank giving 50p. The only charity i dont give to is the RSPCA because i think theyre useless!

Obviously its up to you and your money but children's hospices would fold without donations then where would families with dying children go for respite and end of life care?

I would love to see comfy providing some evidence to back up her claims.

What people like comfy need to remember is that big charities have to operate in a business like way, they often have a lot of resources, volunteers, clients etc which need to be well organised and manage so they can meet their charitable goals. In order to do this they have to pay staff to work to the quality that is needed to do that.

I understand it all and therefore you must understand what I know is confidential.

A charity is just a ''business' like any other.

The church runs a day care, run by volunteers for the kids in the local school where there is no after school club, the donations help pay for heating, books and toys.

My area is in the middle of no where so no real other day cares either, I also take a few nights their to help out a month.

FFS at the judgey people. It's an innocent belief not a war.

Just watching the CEO of the catholic church sat on his gold throne. I expect the others are the same. So the Church is hardly any different from any other charity.

One of my inlaws worked for a large charity in their london offices. The were what would have used to be called an office manager. Ordering the stationary, making sure rooms were available for conferences and prayer times for those who needed them etc Nothing out of the ordinary or too taxing, Earning £40k approx and plenty of freebie days out. Trips to the races, tickets for sporting events and paid for lunches.

As someone's said, the accounts for parish churches are extremely open - as someone on the parish roll, I quite literally get them posted through my door every year if I don't attend the annual meeting. My money goes to pay for pretty much what you'd expect - our heating, our electricity, our repairs, our photocopying and our staff costs (i.e. our vicar and contributions towards dioscece).

I also work for a charity, and although I certainly earn a considerable amount more than the minimum wage, the trustees of the charity believe that the impact I have towards the charity's aims justifies the cost of my salary. Our charity takes the view that if you can achieve your aim significantly more effectively by spending money, then you should do so. Our trustees also have strong concerns over using people to work for free under the guise of work experience placements.

I've never had a trip to the races or a ticket for a sporting event, although I'd agree that I've had quite a few free sandwich when we're hosting lunch time meetings and training sessions for service users.

I don't blame you for not donating to RND, after Terry Wogan siphoned off thousands of pounds from Children in Need every year in "appearance fees" until he was found out a few years ago I'm surprised anybody has anything to do with a BBC organised charity.

It's important to know what you're donating to - if you give money to some random with a rattling tin or some random sponsored events who knows where the fuck your money goes.

A lot of charities are wasteful, but unfortunately it's often either that or don't have anyone doing anything for the social injustice that you want to fight.

There is a very annoying woman who calls round here working for Christian Aid who puts those envelopes through your letterbox then calls back the next evening and waits for ages til you answer the door expecting a bulging coin filled envelope,

That's easily solved, fill the envelope full of leaves. She won't come back.

I can see both sides of the debate.

I support six charities via direct debit. The minute any one of those phones me/doorsteps me to pressurise me into paying more I will cancel my direct debit. No ifs or buts. And I won't feel the slightest bit guilty.

OTOH a couple of decades ago I worked for one of Europe's biggest medical research charities - an organisation full of highly talented and brilliant scientists. The Director was well paid (less than, say, he could have got in the pharmaceutical industry) but well paid by normal standards. And we had to deal with moans about that. It's a charity blah blah....Well no, it was a fucking brilliant scientific organisation working to save the lives of thousands - including that of moaners and their families, and it needed someone brilliant to direct it effectively, efficiently and cost-effectively.

Our criticised director worked more hours in a day than most people ever would. He was hardly ever off duty. Any private time was subsumed into travelling round the world organising collaborations in research, passing on his considerable knowledge to other countries etc, supporting our volunteers, never mind running his own lab and research programme as well. It was vital the charity was run by an extremely professional and world-renowned scientist who directed the best research, saw that monies were wisely spent and to the best effect. Why should he not have a decent standard of living like everyone else at his professional level?

You pay peanuts? You get monkeys.

I work with a national charity (they pay me for a service I provide, far less than they would have to pay anyone else to do it, plus I volunteer a load of my time on top) which is run and managed entirely by volunteers. The chair would love a salary, or some perks over and above lunch at the annual conference. Not all charities have staff and expenses budgets and hundreds of thousands of pounds sloshing.

I agree, unfortunately some people have this misguided few that a charity is only a charity if it is run by scruffy looking uneducated volunteers scratching about who trundle back to hostels every night after working unpaid.

It's better to look at charities as companies providing a service that does not make a profit and is not commercially viable in the private sector, and which the government for whatever reason (to keep taxes down usually) isn't about to pay for. And your donation is a voluntary and targeted tax contribution to fund that company to provide the service it does.

Why would you punish the charity for trying to maximise it's funds? That's the value point in charities paying these companies to sign people up, the charity get a database of supporters and hope some will increase their donation as they lean more about how their money is being used.

zwischenzug, or may I call you intermezzo (?), that's well put. And, sometimes the government support the will of the people through GiftAid.

comfy did you not say you read it in the paper?

My bad, you did not read it in the paper. All charity accounts are public, so what's the secret?

MrsKeithRichards Tue 19-Mar-13 18:15:28
"Why would you punish the charity for trying to maximise it's funds? "

If they harass and bully vulnerable people then I think it is understandable.

My disabled dd was helped by one of the main charities when we were at a low point and I am very grateful.

But rather less grateful when the same charity then kept ringing me up and hassling me because I was unable to up my donation: I was in tears on the phone trying to explain I had just lost my job and that we were at our knees trying to meet dd's needs with no funding, and the paid charity fundraiser openly sneered at the idea that I might not be able to up my monthly donation. And then they rang again...

I had the same charity on the phone the other day: again, expressing open incredulity at the thought that we had reached our limit and refusing to stop the conversation.

You feel horrible having to slam the phone down on somebody who has helped you in the past, but what can you do?

I still won't cancel my current donation: I do believe in their cause, just not in the way they go about fundraising, the people they employ to do it and the way they train them. Big Issue do this so much better.

Confused: my apologies, I meant Comfy. I realised as soon as I'd done it that I'd put the wrong name but was on my way to work and haven't had access to mnet till now, it's been bugging me all day! My bad

YANBU. I don't think anyone should be guilted into giving.