Donation to charity with conditions

[hepsitemiz]

If a person were to offer to make a substantial donation to a charity in return for the charity helping out the donor's close relative, would that be totally reprehensible?

It's a small charity that houses and rehabilitates addicts. Their programme, which lasts two years, is the only programme that has been successful for my sister, but unfortunately she relapsed a few months after leaving them.

The charity are now hesitating on taking my sister back, although they have said they would consider a self-referral from her since she has been a few weeks clean, and they became quite fond of her when she was with them.

Trouble is there is a wait list, and she currently is living on a friend's couch. In those conditions she is quite vulnerable and more prone to relapse once again, so her siblings are quite anxious to expedite things.

None of us live in the UK so we cannot help her with accommodation. If we club together we could probably donate about 25 thousand pounds sterling to the charity. We think this would make a difference to the charity and allow them to help more people - two years accommodation sounds expensive but they keep their costs down by taking the housing benefits of all their beneficiaries, while beneficiaries feed and clothe themselves and maintain the residences.

In case it's material to the matter, the charity is in England and is founded by a religious order. Their mission is to house and rehabilitate addicts, with the added ingredient of optional devotional activities such as organising pilgrimmages and volunteering in churches.

The Charity Commission for England and Wales states that charities may accept donations which have conditions attached, as long as those conditions are not unlawful and are not in conflict with the charity's mission.

According to the Institute of Fundraising, a donation should only be declined if accepting it would be more detrimental to achieving their objectives than declining it would be. Trustees decide if they wish to accept conditional donations on a case-by-case basis.

It still feels like a moral maze, though I know the practice takes place. We want to help our sister as she has nobody left to look after her - except this fantastic friend who is currently putting her up but who will definitely show her the door immediately if she relapses.

Would really appreciate any thoughts.

I think she needs a reason to get and stay clean tbh. Otherwise she thinks what's the point? Could any of her siblings come to be with her to help support her through this?

Thanks carer, we have between us made many trips but if she's using she doesn't let us in. So it's a wasted journey quite often.

Personally I come to visit her about six times a year, and if I am able to see her, it is either because she is in hospital or has just got out. There is no room to stay with her and I have to find an air b and b in the vicinity. I'll accompany her to her meetings, to the GP, to the hospital, or help her clean her flat which is currently, for the fifth time in the last eight months, condemned as uninhabitable.

I never feel like I'm making much headway in helping her. If we clean her flat and replace furniture, it's only until the next bender.

Currently she's making all the right noises, and as esteemed pps have advised, I really want to show her love and support while she is talking this way.

Two other siblings live too far away to come more than once a year max, and the other lives in France, has done loads in the past but has too many challenges of her own now, running a business and with her own dependents to look after.

Even though I live relatively close, in Europe, it's just strange planning to come and see her when you don't even know if you will actually get to see her.

I feel everyone has jumped to saying this is unethical without really articulating why.

You described this as a "large" donation, which I interpret as meaning well in excess of the cost of treating your relative. (If not, then ignore).

In which case, not only are you ensuing one extra person gets treated who would not have otherwise (your relative), which is a good thing, you are also providing more resources for the other service users than they would have had, which is also a good thing.

In other words, those saying unethical have to defend reducing the resources available for other users (a harm), just for the moral 'benefit' of reducing care for your relative (also a harm).

How do these two harms make a right?

@evelynevelyn

Donating money which will support extra clients as well as her sister is one thing.
Donating that money in order to queue jump is another thing altogether.

Every single person on that waiting list is important, every person on that waiting list will be desperate for help. These people should not be overlooked because they are unable to donate loads of cash.

@TossieFleacake

Every single person on that waiting list is important, every person on that waiting list will be desperate for help.

I get that, and take it seriously.

For that reason, I think a very good reason is needed to decline additional resources that would help them.

When the 'very good reason' is that it allows us to decline additional resource to yet one more person (the relative), I'm not sure it's so self-evidently good.

These people should not be overlooked because they are unable to donate loads of cash.

I agree. But (the way I interpreted the OP, anyway), they will be better served now, because of the additional funding. Plus the relative is served too. Win-win.

Hello OP is your sister a drug addict or a drinker? I hope you don't think I am being rude but I'd like to help if I can. I was an alcoholic. I am no longer that person.
I don't know anything about drugs, I have never smoked so I don't see the addiction the same way but treatment centres do. You can go to rehab daily and it is much cheaper but they test you just the same. You get a sponsor etc.

The main issue is whether your sister meets their referral criteria.

The charity will have policies around referrals, safeguarding, and protecting vulnerable people. This applies to everyone on their waiting list and everyone who may be referred in the future.

Financial security aside, if your sister does not meet this criteria then they will not accept the referral. In theory, if they allowed ‘funded’ places (eg NHS, private funding), the same referral criteria should apply to those service users as those receiving charitable support.

If this really is the only specialist avenue of support, could you explore using the money you have to help your sister in other ways which mean she will be more likely to be accepted? For example - could you fund private counselling/therapy out in the community? Regular food or meal deliveries? A cleaner?

I am absolutely not suggesting you are responsible for providing any of this, or that you have a duty of care to do so. But, if you want to help, these are options which may help. Perhaps set a strict time limit on how long you will provide this support, or clearly state she must engage (eg be there when the cleaner or delivery arrives, attend appointments, even if you get her a taxi).

If she is unable to engage with this, you may sadly have to let go and let her hit her ‘rock bottom’.

Thank you again. Evelyn, the point you raise is interesting and it's why I mentioned the amount we could donate and tried - quite feebly - to compare it to the charity's costs for funding two years in their care. I thought that it might be excusable in a way, if the donation allows the charity to provide their services to more people. But of course, I don't know their exact costs per addict. All I know is that residents sign over their housing benefits to the charity for the duration of their stay... thus helping financially, and that the charity does not feed or clothe the residents, which would of course be hugely expensive.

I really think, if I'm being honest, the 25K likely does not cover the costs for treating a second person, which is the point at which the calculation you're talking about, Evelyn, becomes interesting. And this is what I thought the institute of fundraising might have been getting at when they said that "in order to refuse a donation, a charity must be satisfied that accepting it would be more detrimental to their mission than refusing it would be". Meanwhile, others have persuaded me that ensuring fair access to their services - in other words practicing a sound deontology - would be crucial for the charity to continue to secure all their other sources of funding. And that makes total sense to me.

Thank you also, Dancing Fruit, for those really interesting suggestions of other ways I can support her. I had not thought of them - well, except for the private therapy possibly. They are all possibilities, for sure. I had an extremely kind man who helped me finish off the cleaning a few months ago. I was too embarrassed to have him come in at the early stages when there is such a mess to deal with, but he came afterwards when I'd run out of time, and really put a shine back on the place. He didn't take advantage with his fees. I could get him to come again, he was so kind. He said that even when it's a real mess he doesn't mind.

Wendy, thank you. You are actually spot on. I should have said earlier but her drug of choice is perfectly legal and freely available all over. It makes the addiction that much more difficult to combat. I should have explained this when a pp said she needed to delete all her dealers' numbers. Sorry for that. I feel that alcohol is the worst addiction because it's everywhere and so much a part of almost everyone's social lives.

@evelynevelyn

Totally agree that such a huge donation would no doubt help more people than just OP's sister.
It's the queue jumping that I think is unethical.

I'm interested (and armchair diagnosing here) in the geographical spread of the siblings. Two things spring to mind, the evolutionary and the psychotherapeutic. As a gene person, I'd say you all have the wanderlust gene that is implicated in travel, ADHD and therefore addiction. The psychotherapeutic question is; what are you all running away from?

All of that being said, from what you've described you are doing massively more than is typical for her. She needs to make different choices. And waiting for the care, when she's thrown so much care away, might help her to choose better.

Ah, how interesting that you've had those thoughts, Mrs Terry.

My parents both had serious wanderlust, met and married in Kabul in 1959. In those days, Kabul was about as wanderlusty as you could be.

My mother was Brooklyn born and bred, my father Yorkshire. She worked for the CIA and he for the British FCO. She had to resign on marrying, but my father stayed with the FCO until he retired. As a result, we lived in many varied places whilst growing up. Later, in my career and married life, I moved around quite a bit - but not quite as much - and I think it was initially due to wanting to escape tricky family dynamics*, then later because my wonderful husband is also quite wanderlusty.

We have been happily settled in the same city in Europe for the past 20 years. Up until then, I had never lived anywhere for more than 4 years.

Other siblings were relatively static: Sib 1 US, sib 4 US, sib 2 Paris and addicted sister London. Except, I tell a lie, sib 4 spent fifteen years pinging between London and various cities in the US. So it went Boston, London, Washington, London, New York, London, Pittsburgh.

I didn't really appreciate that wanderlust could be a genetic thing. But it could be!

*Although our upbringing was generally caring and responsible, some things that happened when we were young would be seen as quite cruel by today's standards. For instance, our father composed songs about each of us that mocked our failings, so I had one about how slow, lazy and greedy I was, and my nickname referred to my weight. It mattered not a jot if you begged not to have the song sung and not to have the nickname used. I was banished to my room for a whole week once for using words we were not allowed to use - though they were not that strong and I had been provoked by one of my sibs starting to sing my song. For the whole week, nobody was allowed to speak to me or so much as look at me, and I had to buy and prepare my own meals but only use the kitchen when everyone else had gone to bed. I was eight years old at the time. In one of our postings, it was a given that European girls would be sexually assaulted if walking the streets alone... yet my sister and I at the age of thirteen and twelve walked to and from school alone and suffered daily terror and humiliations. None of my friends at school were allowed to venture out the front door without an escort. Our parents were aware of the situation and my father would even joke about it, and since he was a strict Catholic I found that strange. We must have all had some difficulties growing up, but I am very happy now. My addicted sister on the other hand could not adjust to certain things, the thing that hurt her the most she says was being sent away to boarding school, not quite fitting in there, then feeling as if she was "just visiting" when she came home on holidays, especially if there had been a move while she was at school and she was coming home to a new country, new house and everyone else established in the new setup. I think she's still traumatised and apparently that's also what one of her therapists said.

I'm sorry if that's a lot more than you were asking for! I can sometimes overshare.

@hepsitemiz good morning.
Daft question perhaps but has your sister been to AA? We run a very active thread on mums net with many problem drinkers. Some have been hospitalised.
I think that daily support is hugely helpful if the person is not responding to other methods. Your sponsor picks you up and takes you. If she has tried it, I'd try a different meeting. One I liked, the other cliquey and not so nice.

SMART recovery is an online support group. I notice you said she had antabose so her clinicians must be aware and there must be a deep concern for her person.
Nearly everyone I know who is alcohol dependant has trauma.
I'm going to make the suggestion that rehab hasn't worked due to trauma around boarding school and a difficult childhood. Rehab may be triggering. Not all boarding schools are Malory Towers!

I am sorry you all went through that. You could try a mental health approach. Employing a nurse to come daily get her up, clean and tidy. A in-home carer is another option.
I imagine she is alone a lot of the time? Supported living would be better for a recovering addict. It's difficult to arrange this from overseas. Do you have permission to speak to her doctor?
Finally alcoholics do die and it varies as to how long before their organs pack up. I lost my younger brother last year. It's been heartbreaking.
You are welcome to dm me. I don't live in London but I do work there.

Thank you so very much, Wendy. She does AA religiously every day when she's sober, getting up extremely early to cross London for the one group she says she likes. She has her sponsor who is great, and even got so far in her programme as to become a sponsor herself. But she is very easily triggered and as soon as she begins drinking again she stops her meetings and won't pick up the phone for anyone, least of all her sponsor. From that point it's usually four or five days until she needs an ambulance. Luckily for now her amazing friend who lives in London has a key to her flat so can go check on her when necessary.

I have been with her to her GP who is very concerned, yes. But when I call the practice to say she is drinking again they say they can't really talk to me. Then they say they could talk to me if I were calling from the UK.

Sorry, posted too soon. I'm so sorry for your loss, Wendy. It's all terribly exhausting and real and much bigger than we have the bandwidth for, sometimes.

Also thanks for those very constructive suggestions around her ongoing living arrangements.

I can't thank you enough, everyone who's commented.

Thanks for sharing. I can see the adverse childhood events were stacked up in your lives and your childhoods were abusive. I'm so sorry.

It's interesting because there's a theme of lack of control. Made to listen to horrible songs, made to go to boarding school, made to walk alone in a dangerous place, made to speak in certain ways. In recovery she seems to be exercising control; only this rehab, only this AA meeting. Typically you have to give up some control to be successful in recovery, all the 'higher power' stuff in AA. That will be extremely hard for her.

I hope her life gets better. I would advise you to temper your hope. What you've described isn't a hopeful situation.

Some incredibly useful insights there, Mrs Terry. I will remember your words for a long time. 🙏

All the very best. Remember that the only thing you have control over is your own actions. Take very good care of yourself, regardless of the choices she makes.

I have a thought for your sibling. Addicts are usually able to transfer compulsion in many cases. I buy too many clothes!
I wonder if your sib would be interested in joining a gym? Something else to get their teeth into. I know lots of people who are going daily and are competitive. They certainly would need to start slowly due to potential heart weakness. Their GP may even have a access scheme.
Another thing is volunteering at a charity. I worked for a hospice sorting bags of clothes for the shops. Bhf seems to have lots of donations. It's hard physical work.
It does give you a sense of purpose if they cannot work. 200 bags a day keeps you fit and busy. It's company too.
I sent you a DM. Please excuse the typos, I have huge nails as I am testing product.

You need to ask the charity.

It is likely against their constitution and may be ethically dubious but is unlikely to be illegal in the circumstances you describe and plenty of charities would take the donation on that condition.

I speak as a lawyer, charity trustee and chair of the grants committee of a large commercial organisations.