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

Mumsnet is the only place that seems to be holding people to account for opening up vast holes in safeguarding policy at the moment - plus selected parts of twitter and a few (very few) journalists - the latter being vitally important of course.

This is ridiculous. Children's charities and political parties riding roughshod over longstanding procedures of safeguarding.

Yes - we will hold children's charities to account for that. And yes, we will stop giving money to them - because of that.

All big charities are just horrible corporations. All of them are run by self-important management types who would skin their own granny alive rather than fail to keep up with the latest management trend.

Regardless of the specific issue, don’t give Tom these types of horrible, exploitative organizations. There are plenty of local charities run by real people with kind hearts.

keira, I cross posted with you - but can I just point out that the correct people should be held accountable?

Perhaps charities should keep the correct safeguarding in place and stop these scandals happening. It's no good saying "oh our men raped a few locals, but they were doing good!"

Hold the raping men accountable for the scandal/reduction in donations - not the people standing up to it. This is making me angry now.

So do please be aware that, while the behaviour of some people, often men and usually in the field has been execrable and exploitative, withdrawing your support for reasons of female solidarity punishes mainly women,both abroad and at home.

What is the ethical course, then?

Genuine question as I wrestle with variations on this question.

withdrawing your support for reasons of female solidarity punishes mainly women,both abroad and at home

No, it doesn't. Have you not read the thread? We are exchanging ideas on where best to donate our money, not encouraging each other to stop donating money.

I don't donate money to: corporate charities with ridiculously high overheads; corporate charities whose main activity is to create nepotistic bullshit jobs proving bullshit trainincg "toolkits"; charities implicated in abuse scandals; charities with other safeguarding failures; charities whose leadership is dominated by pomo-addled nitwits.

This does not mean I don't donate money.

I've got a copy of some minutes from a meeting (which I can't share). The organisation had earmarked ten charities to support by way of a substantial donation. They tasked one member to do some digging around in the charities' annual accounts, to help inform their decision.

Their first contender spent 60% of its income on wages and benefits.
The second choice paid a dozen people in excess of £100K a year and incurred enormous travel costs when they jetted off to Conferences and fact-finding missions.

You could feel the anger and indignation coming through in the minutes. They ended up donating to a foodbank/soup kitchen/provider of hot lunches for vulnerable people and the homeless, in a nearby city.

I'm very happy with my charitable giving choices. I prioritise what's important to me and important to women and girls around the world.

I still sponsor a child through Plan to whoever asked. The latest newletter which I got today features getting boys and girls to make sanitary pads so that girls can go to school, educating on child marriage and making the streets safer for girls. I'm happy to continue to support them because they have developed a range of projects that are genuinely focused on meeting the needs of girls.

Your local foodbank is likely to be an excellent choice. You can donate food, money and time. And it really does go to people in need.

My nearest town runs one and people every now and then they come to the Asda - hand out lists of stuff they need. They're all just local people, doing their bit. I donate (food mostly) to them - the ones I see are definitely not on £100K salaries.

Interesting thread. I give to CAFOD as I used to work there and am confident it's sound. Am looking for local charities that support women too.

I won't give to NSPCC now. They won't/don't realise that promoting self id puts children, esp girls at risk. Only very recently 2 young girls were assaulted in a female loo by a 17 year old dressed as a woman.

And if women can't say "that's a penis so he's a man" (without being called a TERF), or have no choice but a unisex toilet, how can a girl follow NSPCCs Speak Out Stay Safe campaign principles?

We have a local not for profit organisation that sells second hand stuff through Facebook and their little glorified shed. They sell the stuff really cheaply (£2.00 for kids coats, curtains £2.00 etc). They have free food from freeshare. The profits are used in the local community. The kettle is always on, there us a garden for kids to play and adults to chat. It's such a friendly place to go. Every area should have one

Go local. You can see where the money goes.

Heartease I saw there was a web chat with NSPCC on the MN Facebook page and opportunity to ask them questions, I didn't see where it said there were restrictions on what they wanted to talk about.

Time and time again predators use the topics people are afraid to discuss to get access to children, we saw that in Rotherham and we've seen it many times before.

The NSPCC have been reactive in the past, they did not flag concerns about Jimmy Saville, they did not flag concerns about Rotherham. I would prefer to support iniatives that didn't wait until many children have been abused.

We need to make it easy for children to express concerns and take them seriously when they do. However right now Children (particularly girls) that say they don't want to share changing facilities with the opposite sex are being called bigots that is a worry

I’m another person who supports Plan. I got interested in them because of the Because I’m a Girl campaign. I sponsor a girl in Mali and we write to her and get letters and photos from her dad telling us how she’s getting on, she’s the same age as DD so it’s nice for us to write back and do a bit of cultural exchange.

Plan also do a fair amount of work campaigning against FGM.

I support Forward Uk. They do amazing work on fgm and fistula.

Heartsease you seem to think people here were trying to dominate the NSPCC conversation and force them to talk about some insignificant, niche issue.

That isn't the case. This issue is fundamental to any discussion on safeguarding.

You have a charity which on the one hand is telling children to trust their instincts and speak up when they feel uncomfortable about something whilst at the exact same time is effectively saying they should swallow their discomfort because there is nothing to be concerned about in some contexts. This isn't about trans people - it is about safeguarding and centering children. They are watering down their own message. But we should be good women and swallow that? No. The posts on that thread were calm, intelligent and highly informed. People changed their plans so as to be present during the talk. The charity were disrespectful for not showing up. No one posting thinks all trans people are a threat. Everyone, however, thinks giving males access to female spaces and telling the women they're bigots for having an issue is of serious concern.

Comic Relief and The National Lottery also support Allsorts.
We support local Charities; Hospice (although that is a bit dodgy for me as they refused to take in someone dear to me but that’s for a different thread) Air ambulance, local Animal Shelters and most particularly the local Blind Association as they have been great with a member of my family.

Well, seeing as Heartsease couldn't be bothered to come back and persuade me, I did a little bit of digging into the NSPCC myself.

Lisa says it all in this video. She worked with them. She's seen it from the side of trying to get them to provide a service they're supposed to exist to provide.

It just confirms my suspicions and my very firmly held belief that my money will go towards supporting my small, grassroots, local charities who actually DO something with it for the people they're supposed to be helping.

Heartsease I supported the NSPCC for many years. I had put them in my will. I am reasonably comfortable now, but even when I wasn't, and I had to cut back on other things, I never suspended or cut back on the money I gave the NSPCC. I also took part in feedback panels, and went to presentations.

I did not stop supporting the NSPCC out of some kneejerk response. I went through a conversation with them over a period of several years, voicing my concerns and speaking to different people at different levels in the organisation. I eventually - and this was very hard for me - decided I could no longer support them, and cancelled my direct debit, and took them out of my will (I was rewriting my will anyway).

I didn't do any of this because the NSPCC isn't paying attention to my "pet issue". I did this because I have come to believe, on the available evidence from the NSPCC themselves, that they are acting without having done any impact assessment on this, and because I believe that their current actions are actively putting children in harm's way.

It's basic due dilligence.

Why the fuck does anyone think they have the right to dictate who women in the UK DONATE to FGS?

The arrogance.

I;ve never been keen on NSPCC not sure why.

Recently I was irritated by their guidance (now changed?) which said you couldn't leave a child by itself in the house at all until it was about 22 or something.

save the children are out as well obv

I'm sure there are loads of other charities for children

barnados? anything iffy there?

I must admit ours are all big charities I did look into how much per £ goes to help though.

Other day I looked throuhg local ones and loads are weird as fuck, nothing caught my eye! Donate to the local cult? Maybe...

Oxfam addressed these issues when they arose 7 years ago

Yes, letting a man implicated in sexual abuse of vulnerable women in one country go on to head up another team in another country is really "addressing the issues" isn't it?

Erm no they didn't.

I missed that gem from earlier!

What is frustrating is the way some of these things are handled. All organisations will have bad eggs and despite the odd attitude that charity workers must be saints they are just people. So if oxfan had punished and changed procedures and condemned the behaviour I could have forgiven it. But the comments from the CEO guy which seemed to suggest oxfam was only raping vulnerable children, not killing them so everyone was over reacting were mind blowing. It's hard to support an organisation sending out these messages.

On the other hand I am weary of condemning an organisation because of the board members. They are volunteers usually recruited for specific skills (finance, governance etc). Large charities neee to draw on a range of skills and having one or two people on the board with views that are opposed to mine shouldn't affect a whole organisation- they are just one voice in the debate. As long as the organisation as a whole does good work and doesn't have policies which offend me I will support them.