Charities we have concerns about supporting

[Doyenne]

Last year the institute of fundraising have found what many of us could have told them and that's that women think more carefully about charities and give more often.

There used to be a long list of charities I would support: Oxfam, NSPCC, Shelter, Save the Children, Cancer Research, Shelter.

One by one I've removed them from my list

Save the Children was the realisation of the behaviour they had let Brendan Cox get away with.

Oxfam was aid workers sexually exploiting vulnerable women in Haiti

Amnesty International when I realised their stance on prostitution seemed to have moved 180 degrees

Cancer Research was when they removed the word women from cervical cancer info even whilst their research showed women at higher risk of not going for scans were women whose first language was not English.

NSPCC I'm watching to see if they will belately show leadership on the need for children to be allowed to assert boundaries

Shelter I was really sad to stop supporting when I realised how toxic stonewall had become to lesbians (Strong links between the two wrt trustees).

Children in need has become an absolute no with their support for mermaids and them stopping supporting sex specific refuges.

I'm trying to ensure I don't reduce my overall charitable giving but I fear that may be an unintended consequence of my greater scrutiny.

I wondered what changes/concerns other may have wrt charities

RedCarYellowCar these decisions are not from press coverage. It's from their own statements. Decision to stop supporting Cancer Research was due to their actions on wording which came from their tweets and website

I avoid charities that have numerous "off shoots" - lobbying, research, producing "resources", providing 'training for trainers" and other activities where they are remote from actual service delivery.

For instance, I would prefer to see my taxes directed at social services, mental health services and the police working in Child Abuse Units, rather than being siphoned off, by way of Gift Aid, to pay the salaries of "resource toolkit designers" and executives in the NSPCC.

For every £100 that I donate to a charity the Treasury bungs the charity another £50 in Gift Aid. It would be more if I were a higher tax payer. That comes to billions of pounds

Charities use that money to pay staff and plug the holes in their Final Salary Pension Schemes.

Imagine all those taxes going to places like Stonewall, Amnesty, Oxfam and the rest when they could be spent on social care or the NHS or transport or schools or skills training.

I don't tick the Gift Aid box any more.

Girlguiding. It's a huge charity; not one that people set up a direct debit to perhaps, but all those subs, book badges, uniforms help to fund it. Plus legacies, corporate sponsorship etc.

There's a number of threads in FWR that set out just how GG has thrown girls under the bus.

I'd stick to supporting local individual units. In fact that's my strategy now - supporting local, small charities with known trustees and without the corporate structures.

I support small women's organisations in India who also support children in the red light areas. They set up small employment initiatives to help women leave the trade.

Does anyone know if www.lendwithcare.org/info/about_us is OK? It provides microfinance, and says many of it's projects deliberately target women.

I already support WaterAid and StreetChild, both of which are AFAIK OK, and whose activities have a huge effect on the lives of women and girls (though neither is targeted as such).

Women's Aid.

So pissed off that charities formerly focused on the sex based oppression of women and girls are now watering down their language. Look at this in the Guardian, reporting on the appalling practice of female foeticide and infanticide in India.

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/30/men-fighting-female-foeticide-india

Scroll down and you see that the series is about "issues affecting women, girls and transgender people". The charity behind this is the "Count Me In Consortium"

www.mamacash.org/en/count-me-in-consortium

which also manages to conflate sex-based oppression with the mistreatment of trans people in poor countries, the latter being closer to homophobic abuse. They simply aren't the same and should not be lumped in together. The more this is allowed to happen, the more the idea is fastened in people's minds that trans = Most Oppressed Ever. So the middle class 40something TIMs I know can put themselves on a par with 12 year old child brides or victims of FGM. It's dangerous lies.

www.mamacash.org/en/count-me-in-consortium

This is something I've been thinking about - I currently support the NSPCC but am really disappointed in them over this, DH also supports Amnesty and I've previously asked him to consider switching that to another charity.
Will watch this thread with interest for suitable alternatives that provide services for women and children.

I was just going to mention the Fistula Foundation. Woman-heavy Board which bodes well.

What happened with children in need? I work on a project funded by them and have never heard of anything.

I've also given the Red Cross and Amnesty's fundraisers a piece of my mind recently. RC listened, AI looked blank. Clearly one trains their chuggers a bot more.

Thank you for this list. I am also very selective. I do support local Wildlife Trust, Air Ambulance, Women's Aid, MH charities and try to keep up with what they are doing.

Am also v disgusted with many of the bog Cs listed.

I will continue to support Shelter as they have helped us several times and housing is a so fundamental to safety, but will email re Stonewall concerns.

I think it would help too if we can contact all the charities that we don't support and tell them exactly why.

Children in Need stopped funding a rape crisis service in Glasgow because they weren't doing enough for men & boys.

www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/16405729.glasgow-rape-crisis-has-been-forced-to-close-waiting-list-for-face-to-face-support/

CIN also gave £75k to Allsorts this year who produce guidance for schools saying that if girls don't want to get naked in front of trans girls, the girls should get changed elsewhere.

For those interested in the micro loan type of organisation, Deki is another one. It's based in Bristol and was started by a woman who was given a £2,000 inheritence from her father and a note 'to do something good'.

AuntieStella AFAIK Lendwithcare are ok and I lend through them. But I will see if I can find any policy on women & girls.

Thank you for this thread, I am definitely changing my giving patterns and stopping any DDs that do not directly go to women and girls. I am going to research my local organiszations.

Lots of good info here - thanks.

I'm quite happy to support charities that support men and boys as well as women and girls but I won't support charities that treat women and girls worse, cause harm to women and girls or that turn a blind eye to harm.

I think supporting small, local charities is a good idea. I have been involved in the set up of one in my area and a lot of our - mainly female - donors have said that knowing exactly where the money is being spent, and knowing we have no staff or premises costs etc so all our money goes to helping local people, is a big motivator for them to donate.

I feel the same OP. Unwanted goods go to a local hospice charity and I donate to international and national animal charities only (two of which are in African countries I know people who work there and trust there is no corruption).

I have always supported animals more than humans but I've worked for 'people' charities and non-profit sector and since reading the recent scandals it's clear that there is a problem at a fundamental level that needs fixing. No idea how though!

I work for a charity and I am delighted that bad practice is being exposed, in the same way I am pleased it has happened for the various churches, local authorities, schools, sports clubs and of course within our democratically elected representatives etc. Sadly, there are always bad people who look for the opportunity to exploit the vulnerable and it is great that their bad deeds are exposed and they face the consequences of their actions.

However, all that said, there are thousands and thousands of charities out there doing amazing work with millions of dedicated employees and volunteers. Please don't let the crimes of some put you off donating to those doing really great work with some of the most disadvantaged and desperate in our society.

As for not ticking the GiftAid box because it is used to plug holes in pensions, this is definitely not the case. Money received by charities has to be used for their charitable purpose. Sometimes people make designated donations saying that they only want their money used for specific purposes - so let's say you have a national charity and some donors will ask that their money is used to support a specific activity in one part of the country etc. GiftAid money cannot be specially designated to go to pensions - it is match funding by the Government for whatever campaign it was raised for.

If you are looking to research a charity, have a look at the Charity Commission website and ensure that the charity is registered. Check it's website and look at the annual report and accounts and see who the trustees are. The board of trustees is ultimately accountable for what happens within the charity, even if there is a management team running the day to day business - so they need to be the kind of people you think have overall governance and the rigour to ensure bad things aren't happening on their watch.

I give to the international rescue committee.

There ia a short article by Merryn Somerset Webb (feb 2018) from Money week on why we need to rethink state subsidies to charities, in the wake of the Oxfam scandal.

moneyweek.com/483672/we-need-to-rethink-state-subsidies-for-charities/

Have cancelled
Labour membership ages ago
Save the children recently

We still do
Plan
Local hospice
And citizens advice bureau which DH chose - i wouldn't have thought of it - but which cuts to legal aid and ever more complicated processes for claiming various benefits will help women and children especially I'd have thought