To wonder where my donated item went?

[LemonTreeSkies]

There is a local charity that does great work. They had a fundraiser planned for today and we’re asking for raffle items. I sent the organiser a photo of a brand new items that was appropriate to their audience that I was willing to donate if they wanted it. It was worth about £200. He said yes, great, they’d appreciate it.
fundraiser event was today. Someone posted a video of a walk through of the raffle items and I didn’t see my item there.
I’ve just watched a replay of the live video of all the tickets being drawn and my donation wasn’t there. I’m not sure if IBU to be a bit peeved.
Im not sure if I should message asking what happened to the item I donated or just take the attitude I was willing to donate it so it shouldn’t matter what happened to it.

I can almost categorically say though, that there’s no way they will have kept it for themselves. This is something we would NEVER do.

The problem, though, is that 'they' and 'we' (in this context) may well be quite different kinds of people!

Just ask. Could be a number of reasons. Is that value ordinary or were other items less valuable? Could be one of the organisers took and paid in for them. A bit naughty if so.

How convenient, @Hygiea . Some randomer at a party gives you a wee anecdote to churn out about how awful, grabby and downright criminal charity volunteers are, but simultaneously fails to provide any info about who she is and the charity she volunteers at. 🙄

Of course it goes on. All decent charities - shop based or otherwise - will have controls in place to stop it. It always comes up on threads like this though that everyone knows for a "fact" that charity volunteers are all in it for themselves, steal stuff, take things to resell on Ebay. Makes some posters feel better about doing no volunteering themselves and offloading all the tat they can't be bothered taking to the tip on volunteers to sort/bin.

That's very odd - I wonder if it got broken maybe?

You donated a prize that had a significant value; your totally within your rights to ask if it was raffled; I have family who work for a major charitable organisation; their job sadly is working within the fraud section; unfortunately some people don’t always have “charitable hearts” if they think they can get away with skimming funds off the cause or removing items they think no one will miss; a sad but realistic fact of the society we live in today. Contact them & explain to them & if your not happy with their response don’t be afraid to go to a higher authority; charities do take a very dim view if people are not acting with integrity when representing them.

When I worked for a charity things that came in that had significant value we sometimes asked the donor if we could use the item to raise money in a different way so perhaps selling it on the charities webpage or selling site for a larger amount than a raffle would raise- but we always asked the donor first what they would be comfortable with - as a small charity it was important we maintained good relationships with donors and local communities. I would ask and see how your donation being used.

I echo this. I use to volunteer at our local hospice, and if we had large value items donated for raffles, we would often use it in one of our auctions instead where we could get more money potentially. We didn’t usually check with the doner though, as i guess we assumed the item was donated to raise money for the charity, by whatever means we chose.

I sincerely hope one of the 'charitable' volunteers hasn't selected it for themselves via token amount...

I’d be miffed too. Hope you get to the bottom of it

Oh I’d have loved that picture OP!

😂😂😂

Nothing yet but it’s only lunchtime here for me so it may be something the organiser will do this evening.

To be clear this isn’t a charity shop. It’s an organisation. They had a one-day fundraiser event at a place of business (not theirs, where the organiser works maybe). It was a kind of family fun day with raffle prizes and a silent auction. I didn’t see my item in either.

@jays

I'm disgusted that you said nothing tbh. Cheeky fuckers like your friend, exist BECAUSE nobody says anything!!!

@Hygiea Furnishing?! 😆 Mumsnet is hilarious! As if you'd speak to people in that way in real life! Can you imagine?!

I was being sarcastic
Jesus Christ they don't call this the vipers nest for no reason, do they?!

😆😆😆🙄

Friend of a friend, a group.of people fucking party. Not MY fucking friend! Clearly stating I said nothing because I.didmt.want to ruin the atmosphere for the host of the party.

Would you people really go to a party, where other people are invited who you don't actually know, and one of those people starts bragging and showing off and says some things you personally find disgusting, and decide to ruin the hosts party by creating a scene and an atmosphere because you just HAVE to say something.

That's a really c*nty thing to do to the host of the party you were invited to.

I don't know the bloody woman for fucks sake. I do know the host of the party though, and happen to love and respect her. I wouldn't dream of causing tension at her party because someone else she invited (who is NOT my friend, who I don't personally know, but was at the same party and involved herself in our group conversation) said something I disagree with.

God. You lot just love a pile on don't you. And it's always someone who doesn't deserve it. Bullies. That's something else that I find disgusting, so you'll be pleased to see I'm saying something this time!

I would definitely query it.

Lots of potential innocent reasons though:

• the item was damaged/broken
• they had too many items for that auction and will keep this one for a future event
• they put it for sale online/ebay instead to reach a wider audience.

Of course someone could have decided to keep it for themselves...

It's getting a bit tetchy round here. Here's a Leg Lamp, in all its magnificence, to cheer us all up.

Good for you Hygiea personally when faced with these kind of comments I try and just laugh with my internal voice saying really? and raising 1 eyebrow or my internal voice simply says 'thank $%^& the person challenging everyone isn't at one of my parties!

The conversation started with me saying to another "oh I love your jacket". She responded with "oh thanks, I actually got it in a charity shop for £--, proper bargain!" Amd this led to general chat amongst a small group of us at the party about charity shop finds and bargains. This other woman, who I don't personally know, involved herself in that conversation by telling us she works in a charity shop in her fancy town (I don't know the town well, I've never been, but heard of it. About an hours drive from where I live Several charity shops would be there I'd expect considering it's a town. Woman proceeds to brag about the kinds of designer items from this job as a result of being able to rifle through the bags and nick em. I'm inside feeling pretty disgusted and leave the group conversation and join another group chatting, where my DH is.

No, I didn't hang about to demand her full name and the address of the charity shop she works at. I chose to remove myself from a conversation I didn't like, because I didn't want to pipe up and spoil the hosts party.

I know the host, I wouldnt ruin her party.
I don't know the braggy charity shop thief, so I walked away.

I'm not sure what is "convenient" or so unbelievable to you about that?! All I see is you looking to be a nasty bitch. Being a bitch because I didn't spoil the hosts party just to have my two penneths worth with another person I don't know???

I don't agree with what she's doing, but I won't cause tension at a party because of it. It's not the host doing the thieving!

Oh that is fabulous! ❤️Thank you OP I was dying to see it!

OP I fear you may have been done by whoever you bought this from. It’s not a £200 print it’s a very common Harley Legends poster that’s about a tenner. I’ve seen them a few times on auto jumble stalls for around £20/£25. Father In Law had the poster in his garage at one point.

The frame is worth more than a tenner. I bought it at a charity auction (FFS) so it was more about supporting a charity than getting a bargain.

The print is the tenner I was referring to. Framed they are around the £25 mark at the autojumbles.
Apologies if that wasn’t clear. Apologies for missing you’d purchased it in a charity auction too which explains why you overpaid for it.

my post was only to point out that these aren’t uncommon or expensive to buy so probably an oversight rather than anything nefarious.

This has reminded me of when I was at primary school, late 60s. Our class teacher banged on for weeks about a poor family with 10 kids who wouldn't get any Christmas presents. She really laid it on thick, tears on Xmas morning etc. Asked us all to bring in any stuff we didn't want, for these poor kids. My family didn't have much, like many others, but my mum sorted out a few bits for me to take, including a pencil case in good condition.

Back at school after Xmas hols, what should be sitting on teachers desk full of her pencils was my ruddy pencil case!!
I never said anything and don't think I told my mum. Bloody CF ripping off a class of 8 year olds!!