If you were given a very large sum of money and instructed to give it all away.....

[Earlybird]

.........what would you do, and why?

I'd do as asked because I'm scared of karma honest, it's not mine and I'd want to carry out the wishes of whoever gave it to me.

easy - I would sent up two counselling practices in my local area (literally buy two houses) and sort out placements with the students I teach to provide low cost/free counselling.

there are only two places in my area that provide low cost counselling and where I work has a year long waiting list

Am I allowed to give it to family?

[devious]

I should clarify - please list who/where you would give the money.

And yes - it could be given to family/friends/charity, etc.

give it to a community theatre company (not amateur - different thing) that always seems to be having its funding cut

Righty-oh.

I'd give it to someone who was struggling and needed a chance in life to either educate themselves or use it to help others.....a bit like secret millionaire.

This time of year, I'd sneak around putting gifts on the doorsteps of people I knew were struggling of having a sad time.

I'd also give some to animal charities in my local area.

I'd give most to my mum to help get her out of debt and the rest to childrens and cancer charities. Probably, mainly the one set up in my nephews name. If there was a huge amount left over, I might make donations to animal sancturys and rescues. But my mum would come fisrt.

I wouldn't give the money away, I would set up the counselling charity myself. I could also easily administrate it myself and provide supervision for all the students I get to work there - all for free as I don't need the money.

I'd probably give it to one of the charities in a developing country which gives people tools and/or education and training to help them set up their own small business - there are loads of people who could work themselves out of poverty with only a little help to get them started, and who would then employ others or repay the charity so that it would be self-sustaining.

This is my favourite type of thread on MN

Bumpity bump.

I'd give a large part of it to our church (it needs a new roof) on the premise that we get to have the surate as the new vicar.
i'm fed up of having fly-by-night vicars who come for 4 years and totally change everything, thus losing all the congragation.
i would also make sure the money would be used for important stuff in the church like updating and decent admin staff and putting on concerts and things and advertising etc.
basically use it to make our church a functioning traditional church again

i meant Curate, not surate.
heaven knows a surate is!!!

Put children of your relatives through a good quality private day school education.

A good education is the greatest gift you can give to a child.

How large is it?

Several members of my family have been made redundant, so I'd like to give it to them. But if it is a v large sum, I would buy a book for all of the pupils in school as well, as many of them don't have any books at home.

And I'd like to take something to the local children's hospice too.

How large ?

If it was millions and millions then i'd build a childrens hospice.

If it was just a little bit i'd give it to DF and tell him to give someone he loves a fabby chrostmas

I'd give a load to dh and the kids so we could buy a nice house (and my sisters and cousins)

and to my parents so as they get older and more incapable, they could pay for care

and a huge chunk to the Shooting Star Hospice (near us) and a lot to other hospices in our area.

MacMillan cancer nurses
Parkinsons Society
Cancer Research
Great Ormond Street

and I'd set up a charity to support families of babies with reflux and to support children of parents who get sectioned/have serious mental health problems.

I would help my ds and dd.I would also like to set up some kind of safe place for abused children ,and i would also like to help Naomi house which is a childrens hospice.

I would give it to my husband then we get the car we have been saving for, the rest i would give to my disabled son so he was set with no worries fro life, am i being selfish