To ask how much you give to charity?

[Wibblewobble100]

A TAAT - sorry! Reading the go fund me thread and wondering if I'm really stingy. I give about £200 a year to charity.... £10 month to oxfam, occasional sponsorship / just giving (maybe once every 2-3 months), and if there's a big DEC campaign eg Ebola, Haiti. Other than that it's the occasional coppers in a collection box. I don't generally give to beggars, buy the big issue, give to people collecting in the street or door to door, and I've never received a go fund me request but wouldn't give unless I knew someone really well and was convinced it was 100% genuine. I avoid all telethons (children in need, comic relief etc )like the plague. Am I stingy, how much do you give?

Not that much - 10 quid a month each to a couple of charities, a few chunks in sponsorships and usually a Xmas homeless donation. Plus are five quid of food per week to the food bank. Nowhere near 10 per cent of income.

I've long been a bit sceptical all about how well charities actually work. The Kids Company debacle hasn't increased my confidence level.

£60 a month to my church, another £50 to an eclectic mix of smallish charities by direct debit and about £25 in response to sponsorship requests most months. We attend two to three big fundraising events a year and spend about £100 each time. Can you tell I work in the third sector?

I am Salvation Army. So I give to church. I also provide baby things for the food bank at church. As baby's christening. We had one at my church and one at my husbands church in his hometown.... 2 yeah. I know! . We asked for baby items for the food bank. Lots of nappies, wipes, milk, baby food and clothes were given.

No gifts for the baby as what does he need? Apart from cuddles and kisses.

Now I'm a student. I'm on a limited income and hubby works. So I donate unworn baby clothes and nappies if he goes up a size.

Still do my church giving. But unable to tithe

As far as I know. My wee coppers are just as valuable as the biggest donations

we give a tenner a week to our church. Not sure that is really charitable giving though as it goes towards things like the Diocese Parish share. And we do two big shops for the foodbank, at Christmas and easter, usually about 70 a time. (We shop at Aldi so that is a full trolley-load). I also give about £25 a year to a couple of charities (NAS and wildlife) and DH gives £100 or so every year to RBL and RNLI respectively.

That is it. It s what we can afford. But to be honest I think I may stop giving to the church and redirect that money to the foodbank and the like.

Instead of these charities standing outside discount supermarkets asking people that are struggling to manage themselves for money, why don't they stay at home and write letters to people that waste money on handbags, jewellery, cars and the likes.

They get more money standing in poorer areas

Vulcan. Because people in posh clothes with posh bags shop there too. .

About £250 per year. It used to be a lot more but I cancelled most of my direct debits when I retired.

I now just have the OU and MSF UK as regular donations but will usually donate sums to DEC appeals, local food bank and a horse sanctuary.

I also have an account with Lendwithcare.

Not funny, it really P's me off, if I had that sort of money I would never waste it on shite, I don't know how they sleep at night.

Like Coldplay and the 9 million to kids company

About 10% of household income, plus a bit extra to well-researched local charities and the occasional DEC. Works out about £500 pcm.

At the moment I can't afford to make any regular donations. I used to give about 5% of monthly salary to various charities through direct debits.

I do buy a lot from charity shops and put loose change in collection tins and will donate to crisis situations (eg: natural disasters) but that's it at the moment.

£20 per month regularly to one charity, probably another £50 per year as one off on top of that. I have donated a lot of stuff to charity shops this past year too.

I give monthly donations to several charities, at work we do dress down Friday once a month £5. I will bake for cake sales at work, and go to charity quiz nights.

I volunteer for an elderly support charity and host tea parties a couple of times a year, so donate in kind a lot. I am also chair of the PTA, so responsible for raising funds for that charity. I also donate old clothes etc to BHF shops, they email to say how much our donations have raised, in the last year that has been over £600. I also buy the big issue each week.

Less than 10% of my income though.

Not a massive amount. I don't earn mega bucks, and I give £5 to the RSPCA and £5 to Water Aid each month.
I gave a donation to the Sally Army last Christmas, and will probably do the same again this year.

I'm just sitting here wondering. If every generous benefactor stopped giving hundreds of pounds every month and decided instead to give their time and energy to a charity, cutting back their work hours and therefore earning less, would the charities benefit more or less? In other words, do charities need volunteers more than they need cash, or vice versa? Is money or manpower more valuable to a charity?

I know there is probably no definite answer to this, it just made me wonder if it would be more effective to never have earned that sum but to give the equivalent in time and energy. Perhaps someone working high up in a charity might know.

Ps - don't think I'm knocking anyone for being generous with cash, or for volunteering. It's a purely logistical question.

I give £10 p/m to MSF I used to also give £10 p/m to RSPCA but I cancelled that when they pissed me off just one too many times. I also give far to much money to the school who are vf (Catholic school) and various bits here there and everywhere when people are doing charity things. Probably adds up to £300 per year.

I work for a charity. We work our arses off. Please don't think all charities waste money. My experience is that most of us work a lot of unpaid overtime. We could be paid considerably more in the private or public sector.

I donate my time to a different charity volunteering weekly and I also donate monthly to two other charities.

The grand total of £3 a month to the epilepsy society. On a bit of a budget at the moment so it's all I can afford but I figured anything would help.

I am so impressed and made to feel guilty by discovering how many people genuinely do tithe their incomes. I think it's sad we have slightly lost the culture of giving to charity here - interestingly in the USA where there is such limited social welfare there is a hugely strong culture of charitable giving by contrast with here. Personally I do think having a welfare state is a much better thing than relying on charitable donations but having both is even better.

Oh Vulcan...most rich people I know give huge amounts to charity. They don't drop it in collecting tins but plan it via charitable trusts and balls. They know they have to do this - so we for example we were recently at a ball raising funds for medical research for a very distressing and rare condition suffered by a child we know and fewer than 200 people donated over £500,000.

So to answer the OPs question...I am embarrassed not to do 10%...but through regular donations, lots of marathon etc sponsorships and charity auctions and stuff we give around £3-5k per year. I think we need to become a bit more strategic about it. We both also volunteer for charities and I have raised £20k for charity this year, but am shamed by the tithers.

If people are thinking about giving more, there are several charities that allow you directly to sponsor a child through schooling in less wealthy countries. We sponsor 2 children and you write to them regularly and receive letters from them. Great for families and to get your kids to learn how other kids live. Another good one is twinning your toilet with a toilet in a more deprived country. We have twinned our two loos at home and have a photo of our twinned toilets in Uganda. www.toilettwinning.org/
Another nice thing to do is put aside an amount of money regularly to help people directly so if you hear of a need or of someone struggling financially you can put some money in an envelope and put in anonomously through their letterbox and just enjoy thinking how happy it will make them that someone cared! We also give monthly via direct debit to church who in turn support several charities.

Approx 10% of my salary like many upthread - again not for religious reasons, just how it's worked out. I donate to about 15 charities - mix of national, local and one-man bands - by DD plus fairly regular one-offs (if that makes sense) to disaster appeals etc. All the charities are ones that fit my personal belief system both in what they do and how they do it and I have no qualms in binning them if I find their morals questionable.
I earn enough to afford the money but can't afford to donate time so it salves my social confidence : )

Not masses. I do a lot of voluntary work and don't have spare cash. I also gave up a well paid job for a very low paid one at a charity that is important to me. So I guess I give more time and resources than money.

honeysuckle, I assumed most people work for charities because it's a job that pays a salary. Is this not the case for you?

I mean, when you started working for the charity did you have a particular desire to work for that charity or was it a job that sounded interesting and matched you skill set? I assume for most it's the latter but maybe I'm wrong?