To ask how much you give to charity?

[poshme]

Not TAAT but in response to the disposable income thread.

How much money (either amount or percentage of income) do you regularly give to charity?

There a quite a lot of people who seem to have lots of disposable income, and it made me realise that I give to charity, and hadn't thought of it as part of my 'disposable income' though it is. I was wondering if people give much away?

As a couple we give to charity about 8% of our after tax income.

You can ask, but it is something I think should be a private matter.

5% of my monthly income to the church. It's not much as I don't earn a lot!

5% is saved up in cash. It pays for things like the disaster relief funds eg I gave a bit to a big charity working in Beirut. Each xmas the kids and us sit down and say where we'd like the excess to go. Last year they chose to sponsor a polar bear and we gave the rest to the local homeless charity.

Dh doesn't give on a regular basis but every now and again wel'll decide to really support something. Eg if a friend is running a marathon for a really good cause we might give 1k. We have a few more k to the local park when it was being redeveloped. I'd like us to do much more of this as we get more secure.

I give £5 a month and then over the course of the year 10% of my wage. Dh does around the same but volunteers through work normally once a week.

About £20 a month to various charities in small monthly donations. We adopt a donkey for £3 a month. I also volunteer weekly at a homeless hostel. That's enough for me.

A women's refuge, plan international, rspb, Samaritans, crisis, guide dogs, something else I've forgotten - all monthly donations but not huge amounts. I'm not looking for perfection in my charities but will switch if they piss me off e.g. I switched from women's aid to directly benefiting a refuge.

Plus various bits for sponsorship, one of
ff causes etc. Probably should check as a % of income as feel quite mean compared to some of the figures mentioned

Probably a couple hundred quid a year in ad hoc donations - I don't keep track, as that comes out of my general disposable income.

In a typical year though, I volunteer about 250 hours or so, and I use up some of my paid holiday to volunteer, so I'm fairly comfortable I do my bit...

8 hours a week.

Depends how much I spend in a charity shop. We don't have 'set outgoings' to charity.

Food bank occasionally. Cloth donations. About £13 per month and then random sponsorship of events throughout the year.

I have a £5 a month direct debit for cancer research. I do give generously to just giving pages I come across but I don’t have any official standing charity orders other than cancer research.

I volunteer in a woman’s refuge for domestic violence fortnightly, and also for an hour every week I provide free math tuition to homeless people looking to gain qualifications, in order to help them gain employment at a local homeless shelter.

@BobbingPuffins thank you- I will read that.

We tend to give one off donations to charities that mean something to us. This year we have given to 2 charities. £500 to a women's Refuge charity because we felt worried about women and children in lockdown. £500 to Breast Cancer Now because I have just finished treatment. We are not wealthy but these were important to us and we felt that the charities needed more help because of Covid. We will donate to a local cancer counselling service next because again they are really struggling and having received help from them I realise how important they are for both adults and children. I also tend to donate to things such as a friend walking for a dementia charity etc

I wish big charities would consolidate there are lots doing the same thing, if all the money went into a single pot and admin costs were centralised the people who need it most would benefit most.

Or alternatively scrap all charities and put the money spent on charity into the tax coffers. Any charity work on a voluntary basis only.

I go through phases of giving a lot and then cutting right back. It’s interesting that some people don’t give anything, I would find that hard as it was part of my family culture to give to charity. It’s probably about 5% of net yearly income.

I don’t think it should be private, especially on an anonymous forum.

I rarely give money to charity, usually give £10-15 to the British legion around poppy day but will usually put something in the food bank donation trolley at the supermarket when i shop.

About £800-£1000 a year.

I donate food to my local foodbank and cats protection. I donate clothes I would buy myself to charity shops and the school uniform pool, I don't sell anything. I don't give money though.

*I wish big charities would consolidate there are lots doing the same thing, if all the money went into a single pot and admin costs were centralised the people who need it most would benefit most.

Or alternatively scrap all charities and put the money spent on charity into the tax coffers. Any charity work on a voluntary basis only.*

Bigger doesn't mean better. Some of the best work is carried out by small charities responding to local needs and use funds wisely. Some large charities are very wasteful with resources and can be less radical than smaller organisations (as they have much more to lose, gov contracts etc).

Charity work purely on a voluntary basis wouldn't work either. How could charities on the scale of, say, Oxfam operate without paid staff? Also through donating to charity you can choose where your money gets spent, you don't get that freedom if it all goes to tax.

Monthly direct debits to Plan International, NSPCC, Dogs Trust, Greenpeace, WWF and Amnesty International.

I also volunteer for Homestart.
I give quite a chunk, and would give more, but I don’t have a lot of money.
It’s the principle.

About 30% of our income goes to various charities, but that's because we have paid off the mortgage and have a lot spare.
If the current account gets too high we give lump sums to charity projects (eg to resurface a sport area in an African school).
We also give to the food bank and volunteer time to community projects, church and Scouting.
Reading that I sound like some sort of martyr, but I'm not really, I just like to help people however I can. We had a lot of help when the DCs were little, and like to give back now we're able to.

Depends what price you put on time. 4 hours a week in a charity shop, DS does another 4 hours and DD has helped another 4 hours a week through the summer holidays as we needed extra help resetting the shop after lockdown. Very rarely come home without buying something, usually around £5 to £10 per week. Like another poster upthread I do knitting for a big charity, things like blankets, hats, scarves. Have several years of being on pre-school/PTA/guides committees too.

In monetary terms, not much. But pre covid I volunteered , and gave approx 8 hours a week of my time. I am also a befriender for my local hospice.

Around £100 a month, almost all to dog charities.

There are problems with certain large charity organisations

After seeing the little percentage of what gets donated actually go to the cause it doesn’t sit right with me at all. Especially considering the over inflated salaries the CEO’s are taking

I donate good quality times to charity shops
I give my time
But spare money for me needs to go to the family members or friends who struggle to afford to repair their car to take their children to school in, or fix their leaking roof etc

Some charities have as little as 0.7% or 2.5% of donations going to the actual cause

So I would be very careful about finding out how charities actually use their money before donating