to be put off by the amount of money spent to make programs for comedy relief?

[purplemonkeydishwasher]

Surely they could just put that money to good use here and abroad.

AND I'm absolutely DISGUSTED by the gluttony and drunkeness in the Fame Academy house. they are doing this for STARVING people. Get a grip on reality.

I think it's a good thing, it raises awareness and how many people would give otherwise? I think some of the footage though is really graphic, of course it's got to show the reality so we can see it's people and not just statistics, but the one where the baby died from malaria in it's mother's arms was devastating, I can't stop thinking about it.

I'm not watching it.

Fight Club is on.

The way charities are required to account for free services doesn't help with understanding their cost base.

All free services have to be added in as donations with the value of them estimated and then taken out again as costs. For charities like comic relief where they have lots and lots of services provided for free - processing of donations, legal fees, accountancy fees etc etc things that they have never paid for are shown as costs.

At the end of the day, comic relief is disbursing around £60-80 million pounds a year to charitable causes. That, by anyone standards is awesome. Only a small percentage of that would be donated to other charities if comic relief didn;t exist - so it does the job it needs to do and it does it well.

fight club has to be the worst brad pitt film ever. it even beats kalifornia

but it's better than Comic Relief.

This really pisses me off. I work for a (very large) charity.
If everyone was donating to charity then hey, but most people don't and so we have to go out and raise the money.
It costs money to raise money. No charity spends more than they have to on fundraising, we all keep our costs to a minimum. Get over it.

I used to work for a small charity, btw. Was one of the worst shambles of dodginess wrt the fat cat directors doing NO work and earning shedloads you'll ever see. Fudging expense accounts, bullying anyone who queried mileage claims, etc. LOTS of bullying in the charitable sector - people often go into it because they have MASSIVE egos, IME (not me, natch! ).

jennster...so true...

and also i cant stomach the two faced corporate element in all this...

er, dont they know that we know that they all just exist to make fat money for their shareholders.. er, we're not thick you know

So Suzy - you'd rather they didn't bother?

That will stop the flow of a lot of charitable aid!

I'm not fussed what mechanism is used to get money out of people to look after the poor, lonely and starving. I just want it to happen - and it doesn;t happen enough!

Oh and BTW - the biggest shareholders that the corporates are making money for are pension schemes and insurance companies.

You might be glad they existed one day!

Dh and I have worked in charities for years. There may be some bullying, as there is in any workplace from time to time but it really isn't something that characterises the sector. When I see ANY group of work colleagues out from the private sector, I shudder. Charity wages are crap. Dh and I, and just about everyone else who works for a charity could earn a lot more in the private sector. We are criticised for being paid a decent wage and if you want a decent CEO (and my charity has a £65m pa budget, and employes 2,000 staff, so we need one), you have to pay a decent salary. He gets £65kpa which is far less than his private sector equivalent earns. He is also one of the world experts in our particular field.

Btw, if all of you who are criticising want to give us enough money to meet our fundraising targets this year, without having to employ any fundraisers, be my guest.

soapbox..i would rather corporates were properly regulated, (not the deregulation they lobby for and recieve); enforced to pay living wages to employees not operate sweatshops and force people to work for slave wages; pay full tax due and not pollute our environment whilst pursuing their profits...

imo the charity they give is only done to make them look good, feel homely and not threatening..their sole reason of existence is to make profit for shareholders...

if they treated employees properly then ordinary folks would have more to contribute to charities of their choice and perhaps the need to give charity would be somewhat eliminated...

sorry cant afford insurance or pension, that is why i will work til i drop...

I worked for a large national children's charity in the fundraising department.
My job was to suck up to rich ladies who lunch so they would organise fashion shows/ soirees for their rich chums so charity would receive a few coins from their coffers.
I now feel that in a civilised society there should be no need for charities.
Just tax the rich!.

Artic - I wouldn't be a corporate fundraiser if you paid me!

Corporates are more heavily regulated now than at any time in history. Tax avoidance has been tightened up significantly in the last 10 years. SO what you are saying doesn't make sense to me.

Corporate and social responsibility is becoming more important as those new regulations require companies to make statements as to how they are achieving this. It might be forced on them, but it is for the common good.

I agree with you regarding paying people living wages - irrespective of where their staff work.

If comic relief didn;t exist then there would be no money to spend on the projects they sponsor. The world would be a worse place without it than it is with it.

The Utopic world where charity is not required is not coming any time soon - so should we do nothing?

I am sorry that you are not in a financial position to afford a pension or insurances of any kind. They are so critical to have in place and it is unfair that they are not available to all!

Beansprout, I do understand there are MANY charities that are excellent.

My experience of the sector wasn't great, at all.

My experience of the media is FAR better

soapbox,...
corporates are more regulated now? i really dont think so...i think they are more rampant than ever..

this system we live under allows them to lobby and donate money to our political parties / government of the day...
.... enables a blind eye and maybe small fine for all the oil spillages, toxic seepages, chemical explosions,

...political tolerance of armed economic zones, poorly paid exploited workers at home and abroad...

their charity giving is purely pr...

The Corporation, the pathological pursuit of profit and power by Joel Bakan is an interesting read on these issues...

i do think that charity is just a 'for now' band-aid type solution; it eleviates some of the suffering today but in no way does it provide a long term solution...it may even hinder it...

and thinking of 'band aid'..it makes me feel ill the line
....'tonight thank god its them instead of you'
wtf is that about...

...i dont care about pensions and the like, if i did have one it would probably end up along similar lines to poor sods at the Mirror;
...and insurance, have had to fight tooth and nail with these bastards in the past to get what was due

...(after horror car crash, finally paid up 3 years later) would not encourage them by giving them any of my money...it doesnt do what you think it said on the tin....

100 per cent behind Beansprout here. I work for a not for profit organisation and of course it costs money to raise money. as for the comment about chuggers getting paid - why shouldn;t they? - they're doing a job. People get paid for doing things that have a negative impact on our society. people get paid for doing things that are kind of neutral. how come people only get arsey about the ones doing something positive? sorry but I really don;t get that one...admittedly there are lots of people who would do this stuff out of the goodness of their hearts - people with spare time and people with independent income - but if the charity sector depended only on them rather than paying people a wage it would be a complete shambles.

Suzy - the point regarding regulation of big business is true and well documented. It followed on from the Enron collapse, firstly with the SEC in the US and then in the UK under the auspices of the FSA.

As regards your other points - yes charity to corporates is in the main PR, but if it works...

Charity being a short term solution is a long had argument. However, until we live in a world where war, famine and aids are eradicated then there is an overwhelming need for short term solutions. Long term solutions can work, where there is stability - but not in those instances where a quick fix can keep millions of people alive to overcome some catastophe (man made or not).

The line in band aid was meant to be ironic. Meant to make the point I am trying to make here - it is only by a quirk of birth that it is them and not us who are watching our children die before their time. If it were you in their shoes - what would you wish someone would do for you?

soapbox...

if charity or crumbs from the corporate pr table is the best we can all we can expect then agree its better than nothing ...but have no illusions about it please...it keeps people in the poverty, whether it be first or third world poverty ...oh and once a while we think about and 'do' something about it...
...of course its better than nothing but its still shabby imo

if properly regulated, (as you say they are) then we would not be in this position..

wars and aids have benefited these corporations...

wars..iraq war is the first privatised war..bechtel and halliburton (soon to relocated to dubai to avoid US regulations and tax) has made mint from government contracts whilst not fulfilling them...ripping of US tax payers and iraqi citizens..

aids - corporates could have allowed retro viral drugs to be given to aid victims in southern africa and other countries but oh yeh, they had to be forced into doing it..

i dont disagree with charity per se, i just am aware of the spin, pr, hypocracy and crass nature of these corporations and our spineless governments in happy to sit in their pockets to afraid for real action...

..and....if i was in their position i would of course take any help offered,

...but would much prefer to really see some long term solutions ( fairness in trading, aid given without conditions, lack of meddling, reparations for colonial interference etc..) so i could at least hope my children were not in same sorry position and that isnt happening is it?

and sadly that never will under this system
...the force for real change just isnt there for the corporates..and they are in charge...

and sorry, the delivery of that band aid line does not suggest to me that it is ironic at all..

i must go to bed now ...night night...

for the record i have in past worked in charity sector...

Ok, I'm not going to make much sense but here goes.

A very good lady I knew set up a charity. She knew full well that by doing what she was doing meant that the government spent less money on their people and more money on warheads, the army and giving luxuries to government people. But as she said to me, what do we do? Let them die because of principles? Because our government do fuck all and their government do fuck all we should do fuck all and let their governments learn the lesson? What lesson would that be? That they are unburdened of a few million less people?

To be honest, the government don't appreciate the publicity things like Comic Relief show, it shows them in a bad light. No shit.

Tell me then, what do we do? Say to the government, tough shit, deal with it and watch whilst they let people die because it's less people to deal with? Or help those people? Because those people are not just statistics, they are individuals with hopes and dreams and lives to live. So in this instance I'm afraid I say fuck you! Fuck your stupid political views, this person and that person are dying and you argue about politics? Fuck it. You do what you can ffs!

OK, ok. I take it back. maybe they DO need to spend lots of money so we'll watch the shows and feel bad and give generously. Fine.

BUT BUT BUT!

what about my OP? what about how the celebrities act while doing the work?

Is it morally right for them to be over indulging in (FREE) drink adn food while doing good for a charity? I think not.

rhubarb..you are right,
....you dont make much sense..
and dont think you read the posts either...

my original point is that i cant stand the way corporations / governments ride on the backs (and can become the face of) good works of charity when in actual fact in their daily business they cause and contribute to many of the problems the charity is trying to address..

of course do what you can etc....

just be aware that the supermarkets you use, banks you bank with etc...are out to make a profit and dont kid yourself that they really care...

Who cares if Sainsbury's cares ?
I don't, indeed I don't thing any corporate body is capable of "caring" be it Sainsbury's, the NHS or Bomber Command.
Only people can "care".
Because I've worked in senior management who've made decisions on supporting charities than quite hard nosed decisions are made. My last firm pretty much doubled the funds available for research into some obscure disease.
But it was firmly integrated into marketing.

Does that make them good or bad people ?
I know the characters involved, and for some it was a toss up between this and taking clients to Wimbledon, others got some warm fuzzy for the fact they were doing something useful.

The genius of Lenny Henry and his gang is that they've persuaded vast organisations, and huge numbers of people to do something useful.
Suzycreamcheese reads the Guardian too much, and The Economist too rarely if ever.
Comic is a slick and impressively professional outfit. Even before they launced, very smart people
They sell Sainsbury's something of great worked on how to do the sponsorship, the structure of deals, and a load of stuff that suzy demonstrates a deep ignorance of. The value to Sainsbury's is huge, as is the cash they give for something that costs CR nothing to produce. They use the money to reduce the amount of shit in the world in a hugely efficient way.

I agree dc

in fact you have been quite agreeable lately..