Would you contribute to a charity like this? (I’m thinking of setting up one.)

[vipersnest1]

I’m not asking for donations and don’t intend to say what the specifics are, but if you were asked to donate no longer needed baby and child items that would make the life of a baby or child better, would you be willing to? I’m talking about relatively low-cost items like clothing but not giving specific details.
Sorry for being mysterious but I don’t want to fall foul of MN talk guidelines.
I’m just putting the feelers out there to see how viable this might be as I’m retiring and the issue is something close to my heart and that I’ve wanted to do for several years now.
Any thoughts would be welcome.
TIA

How big are the boxes? What if it gets full and people are still bringing in donations? What if someone comes in with ten bags? Or wants to donate something large and unsuitable like a pram because they have the wrong end of the stick? What if someone donates soiled or damp clothes? What if they leave bags outside like they do with charity shops? Or if people keep coming up to the staff with questions relating to the charity?

If UNICEF are working on this issue already it seems unnecessary to set up a whole new charity? Could you raise money instead and donate it to the relevant UNICEF project?

@Hoolihanthere isn’t currently a project that is doing the same as what I’m proposing.

@NanCydrewandtheclueinthename, the items I’m looking for won’t be bags and bags worth, but would be incredibly valued to the children involved.

Just to say again, the items aren’t specifically clothing - I gave that as an approximate example.

Something like children's spectacles? Yes, would definitely donate.

There’s a big charity near me that does this. They take clothes and toys, but also prams, cots, anything child related really. They parcel it up to families in crisis I believe. Sometimes they’ll post a specific “we have a family that really needs X”. They have a good reputation locally and get a huge amount of donations - when you drop stuff off the place is absolutely vast.

In a word, no.

Too many charities are badly mismanaged, and if you’re talking about distributing some item or other to the 3rd world you would have years and years of work ahead of you to even get the resources off the ground to be able to do it.

And the question is, if there isn’t already a project which does this and Unisef are involved, why not? There will be a good reason for that, especially given the numbers of children’s charities on the ground already in the third world.

@boysmuminherts, you’ve come close to one of the items I’m talking about.
I’m not asking anyone to guess in case it derails the thread.

By all means speak to unicef and see if they’re already involved in this initiative and support them in trying to further it or whatever. That would be awesome.

You don’t want to be yet another charity with yet another CEO taking a salary. That money would be better spent on the kids. There are too many charities who mean well but don’t have the network to be efficient. I’d leave it to the professionals to oversee and donate your time to helping them.

Sorry if that seems like Im being thoughtless or presumptuous. Maybe Im just jaded. I do know that setting up a charity is an absolute bastard. Really hard. Our local bike cooperative gave up. And they were good guys trying to help local kids get bikes for a tenner but couldn’t keep it going without charity status.

Yes, of course. But I was also under the impression that for low cost items it was usually more efficient to purchase abroad. Else you be given broken/dirty unusable items that you have to sift and move

Like many PP, I am edgy about small charities (the Captain Tom situation shows how badly wrong these can go). Would I give to UNICEF or UNHCR or Medicine Sans Frontiers if they had collection boxes for this item - whatever it is - in my local surgery - absolutely yes. Would I give it to some random unknown small charity - I’m afraid not, no. I think you’d be better to work with someone established then start something new.

I'm more than happy to donate things my children grow out of. In fact, it really helps me out to have places to donate them (little children grow out of things so quickly!).

The only potential issue I can see is that so many charities/community groups already collect clothes... Putting collection points in really convenient places will probably help. Nurseries are a great idea (though mine are always asking for spare clothes to use themselves which could put them off helping).

I think anywhere that attracts the same parents to visit on a regular basis would work well. Local primary schools and playgroups maybe? One local soft play/baby class centre did a collection for a specific charity for a while. They had a place to leave things with a sign explaining the charity's work right as you walked in. It always looked full.

Good luck OP!

as you can see OP there are many practical issues to consider
but I think the important thing would be to ask experts in the country you are thinking of what would help the children there the most (kind of what you are doing with UNICEF but more local)

I know it can be frustrating to think of the apparent waste of people in the UK discarding things that you believe might make a massive difference in another country

But apart from the issues of collecting/storing/transporting/distributing those items...would they actually be useful?

its difficult to say without knowing what you are thinking about but I'm thinking of things like batteries/maintenance/fitting/is it something where a constant supply is needed how do you guarantee that, is it culturally appropriate/how will they be fairly allocated/what of the child then becomes dependent on the thing and they outgrow it....

consider that many good hearted people set up and support charities in developing countries that seem to meet a need but end up creating unforeseen problems (like orphanages)

Ok. Would most people with kids have this particular item? It’s difficult to say whether I would donate something I may not even have.

Sorry I've just read the thread properly and seen that you're not talking about clothes...

I think it's tricky for anyone to answer without knowing what exactly you're talking about and your connection/knowledge in that area.

For example, I have a deaf child and would happily donate old hearing aids. But I'd put a lot more effort into researching a charity that was collecting them than I would in a charity that wanted outgrown clothes.

Ok, I can guess what kind of thing it is now but won't indulge in guesses. The trouble is if it's the sort of thing which needs to be checked and then fitted / suited to the child, that is going to be your difficulty - I'm sure people will be willing to donate the item UK side (like others the waste of stuff kids have grown out of and lack of infrastructure for reuse/recycling, particularly for anything vaguely medical drives me mad, I'd be prepared to go substantially out of my way to donate something specialist for reuse) but if something even mildly medical/special that not every child has you'll need quite a lot of collection points (or could people theoretically post the items to a central point, if you could offer prepaid envelopes or freepost I'm sure that would help), then someone will need to sift out the broken/dirty/wrong item donations then package back up to be shifted out, then like I said before presumably you don't intend to just hand out the items on the street so you'd need your UNICEF contact to help a lot on the distribution side, again if it's something that requires some skill in the fitting or use who will do this to prevent items being wasted or used inappropriately and actually doing more harm than good?

All of this.

I get my prescriptions made up at my local Boots. There's generally a queue. Time before last, there was a big cardboard receptacle for recycling empty blister packs. Great! Someone in the pharmacy came out to empty it. Clearly a little late. There was a certain amount of excess stuff spilling out, gathering up, ''Shall we help?' chaos.

I'd rather Boots employees (or GP surgeries) focussed on serving their customers/patients.

When I went to Boots yesterday, the cardboard receptacle had gone. And they'd still fucked up my prescription. Please help the NHS concentrate.

Please don't use the term 3rd world. It's horribly offensive.

oh god the blister packs!!!!
in our town its only superdrug that take them (a shop I have to make a special effort to go to) and the box is always full, so I have to give them to an assistant (possibly a pharmacist who could be better employed) and then they frown at me and say 'we're not supposed to take them in bulk'-- but I have been saving them for months, I don't want to pop into superdrug every week!

@NoctuaAthene, not quite as specialised as you are guessing. But, very specifically helpful to the children involved.

Do you ever consider getting into charitable work. I am in the sector and it can be really useful to have volunteers with the drive to make things efficient involved.

I am reminded of the bit in Pollyanna where the church/orphanage whatever is sent a crate load of crutches
Pollyanna is instructed to be glad about it because they don't need the crutches !

Yes, there’s a documentary about a town in Australia that was burned down, the one where they were all on the beach because of the fires. People sent a load of stuff afterwards and it caused a new crisis. It’s money they needed.

I work for a nonprofit.

I’m also disabled and have yet to find a charity that can match with me as an ongoing volunteer given my restrictions.