Profiting from Macmillan coffee morning

[Gardenista]

I’m pretty shocked to note one of our PTA committee members - using our PTA contacts for donations of jam and cream is running a virtual coffee morning - a homemade scone (bakes by her), plus donated jam and cream and a tea bag - for £5, each purchase she is donating £2 to Macmillan. So she’s making £2.50 Personal profit on each sale (as making a scone, a tea bag and a bag to put them in won’t be more than 50p.
I find this really distasteful - and this along with a few other comments has made me want to revaluate any “friendship “ - she’s not at all hard up btw

Do the donors know what she's doing?

It’s corporate donors - rhoddas cream - they sit ask that it’s for charity

And how much will the postage be to send out jam, cream, and scones to each person for the virtual coffee morning? That's a small parcel per person and I'm assuming given the contents they won't be going second class snail mail.

She'll hardly be raking it in will she.

Collection from her house to the other school mums. It’s the fact that she’s making a pittance on it -£2.50 on maybe 50 people . Not much remuneration for the effort involved but it’s using the PTA contacts to make that which is distasteful. She is a very well off SAHM

I would comment 'Great cause, very close to my heart. Are the prices right or is there a typo? Surely for £5, the amount the charity gets should be more like £4.50 as most of it has been donated.' And then I might even add 'let me know hun'

And I’d add that I’ll be giving my money straight to Macmillan, thanks

I wouldn't donate to her.

So you dont know the actual costs?

You've just pulled the figure of 50p out of the air?

Before slandering her across the internet have you thought of asking her ?

If your incensed by £2.50 google how much the ‘fat cats’ make.
Dogs Trust for one has had a huge increase in donations, yet hasn’t taken in more dogs to reflect that increase. They’ve just increased the top salaries.
I know Macmillan does good work, but they also throw cash around on ridiculous things, staff that get paid £26k pa to literally do something that could be done in a day, for much less!
There was a post on here a week ago, from someone who worked for a charity who was ditching their career because of all the money flying around.

Like @Elsewyre, I need to know where the “no more than 50p” figure comes from before I can vote or say WIBU. She could buy a box of scone mix, a box of 50 tea bags to split, and pass them out in plastic sandwich bags OR she could be making the scones with organic flour, including individually wrapped tea bags, and making up the packages in decorative bags complete with ribbon and printed name tags.

Maybe you know exactly which it is, which is where you got the 50p figure, but otherwise, you’re making a hell of an accusation (essentially stealing from charity) about something which people are going to feel very strongly (raising for Macmillan) so I hope you’re 100% sure?

MACMILLAN steal from their own "local" donations FFS!!

Our local Macmillan support office is on its arse because they were set up by the charity and then left on its own after 2 years. But any donations sent the charity as a whole is kept by them, despite being nominated for our local office. Loads of people fundraise locally, thinking that they are helping the people who helped them, but none of it goes back to that office.

Same with the RSPCA.

Big charities are just big business now. I wont give them a penny.

If she actually is profiting from it then yes, that's awful, but from what you've said here it isn't clear. You don't have enough info to accuse her. I would find out more about it before you conclude that she is profiting from it.

Assume £10 total for scone making and tea bags - that’s generous. People could use their own jam. Cream already donated. She can afford that as her donation. Just say no to her and encourage those who want to, to donate directly to Macmillan.

It’s a daft idea anyway. If I want to eat a scone in my own kitchen and make a cup of tea I don’t need to collect a kit from someone’s house.

Don't most charities work like this? Profits go to the cause, but overheads can include whatever they want to charge themselves for their efforts.

Yes, but none of that makes what this woman is doing right, fgs.

There should doubtless be an overhaul of some of the larger charities, and more accountability - but that's not really the point.

I agree that you can't necessarily know how much her overheads are - she's probably included fuel for the oven, if she's making them herself, or she's cheating and either having them made at a local bakery or just buying them!

But if she genuinely is keeping more back than her overheads cost, AND more than she's donating to the charity, then she's profiteering and shouldn't be doing it.

I don't really get the concept anyway.

If I was doing a virtual coffee morning I would simply arrange a date/time, encourage everyone to make or buy a nice cake to eat and donate directly to the charity. I wouldn't piss about making scones and supplying teabags for people to collect.

Also, do people really calculate fuel costs and such when it's for charity? Unless I was running a business and/or making a very, very large number of cakes I wouldn't take "costs" back out of the donation pot.

She must be fucking stingy to claw back the costs of making a few scones and throwing a teabag in whether she has exaggerated the expense or not.

I agree with Flatshite

By the way I chaired my schools PTA for several years and never deducted any expenses. All my own petrol, time etc.

It does sound as though she’s profiting some way but until we know how much the scones cost to bake we can’t actually comment.

What i can comment on is that Macmillan very cleverly markets their charity. You know the nurses are paid by the NHS? They don’t carry out cancer research either. I prefer to support Marie Curie.

On a regular coffee morning, if you turn up with a cake you've made you dont go asking to be reimbursed from the donations. The cake itself is a donation.

I agree the virtual concept is weird. Just set up a group zoom call, ask everyone to buy themself a cake and direct them to charity JustGiving page through the call.

@FlatShite

Also, do people really calculate fuel costs and such when it's for charity? Unless I was running a business and/or making a very, very large number of cakes I wouldn't take "costs" back out of the donation pot.

She must be fucking stingy to claw back the costs of making a few scones and throwing a teabag in whether she has exaggerated the expense or not.

Agreed!!!

Unless your really strapped for cash, it’s a stingy thing to do, you’re not a full time charity employee, this should be your donation!

It's not really any different to chuggers - a portion of your donation is paying the person raising the money. Distasteful but commonplace unfortunately - even if you donate to charity directly, most of your money is lining someone's pocket rather than helping the actual cause.