Donkey charity receives more donations than four leading domestic abuse charities combined

[IwantToRetire]

A donkey welfare charity received more donations in a single year than four leading domestic abuse charities combined, new figures show.

Data from the Charity Commission register reveals that four domestic abuse charities – Women’s Aid, Refuge, IDAS and SafeLives – together raised far less money through donations than The Donkey Sanctuary.

The four domestic abuse charities received a total of £11.3m during the 2022-2023 financial year, while The Donkey Sanctuary was the recipient of £51.7m in 2022.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/domestic-abuse-donkey-charity-funding-b2607499.html

I can remember there was a news story about this situation, maybe as much as 10 years ago. I wonder if the difference is getting bigger.

Animal related charities always do very well, in my experience.

In fairness the Donkey Sanctuary has been going for a long time and is an established charity with a huge amount of adverts.
While I agree it’s depressing that the women’s charities don’t get more money, they aren’t as well known.

How odd. I rarely even think about donkeys, and certainly not in the context of thinking about how they could probably do with more financial support.

I used to go there on ‘Donkey camp’ when I was a teen 😁

I love animals but this is crazy

I imagine most of their donations are through the 'adopt a donkey' promotion. Can't imagine many people wanting to adopt an abused woman, sadly.

A quick google says the Donkey Sanctuary has closed its sites around the country and relocated the donkeys. Cheaper to run fewer sites.

Who even has donkeys these days? I have very rarely seen donkeys out in fields as companion animals. Perhaps they will run out of donkeys to save soon?

That’s awful. As much as I like Donkeys I’d rather women were better looked after

Not at all surprised. My mum escaped an abusive marriage. She cares far more for animals than she does women in the situation she was in. I think it’s some sort of defence mechanism.

Donations in wills are another huge source of income. Again, people won't tend to think of abused women when making their wills. Children and animals I would guess.

😂

The Donkey Sanctuary has global ambitions, they partner with other agencies on donkey issues across the world.

Really it's a bad comparison, as the domestic abuse charities (afaik) are just UK based.

This is not surprise to me, i know a few people who have spent thousands rescuing dogs from abroad .

When I worked in the charity sector. The top three charities were

Cancer research
RSPCA
RNLI

I worked for a small hospice who received 8% from the Welsh government, the rest was raised by locals to provide 12 beds and a day centre. It was hard.

My neighbour a wealthy lady has rescued four dogs from abroad. That's cost her tens of thousands.

I was wondering whether most people just sort of assumed that supporting victims of domestic violence would be done through state funding.

They wouldn't be aware that DV services were created by women volunteering to help other women.

And in fact the first funding for refuges was done in London, by Ken Livinstone's GLC, to not upset old time male Labour Councillors the proposal to fund refuges was not to refer to the male violence, but to say it was a homelessness issue.

So it was agreed to allow women in refuges to claim housing benefit (which suited councils as the building were often council building so effectively the money came back to them as rent).

But this "clever" solution to allow men not think about the consequences of male violence, has led to long term funding issues of refuges. If the only money made available to support victims of domestic violence was rent money, where was / is money to come from to pay for support services etc..

Very few refuges got core funding. They haf to apply for separate chunks of money, ie theraputic support, legal support, children's activities from a range of funders. Not sure that for some of the smaller DV charities this has changed.

Really it's a bad comparison, as the domestic abuse charities (afaik) are just UK based.

No its not! Its about which charities people in the UK give money too.

And I very much doubt people in the UK are thinking about donkeys in other countries.

I wonder how many people in the UK know that there is now active support for underfed over worked donkeys in Gaza, where because of the lack of fuel, donkeys have become an important means of transport.

Where people give money to charity is just very illogical in many ways. Very influenced by emotive issues, very influenced by fads. Giant charities (certain cancers for example) often rake it in totally out of proportion compared to other medical issues just as serious or common.

I think one element is that people know that there are more issues than they could ever donate to or help meaningfully. So they tend to choose things that appeal to them in a very personal way, and don't feel a need to justify that. Sure, maybe they aren't giving a donation to a women's shelter. There are hundreds of other worthy causes they aren't donating to either.

And I very much doubt people in the UK are thinking about donkeys in other countries.

You’d be surprised. I remember years and years ago being disgusted because the unpleasant Ann Widdecombe chose to support some charity to help donkeys in Jerusalem when she went on Who Wants to be a Millionaire

At least most decent celebs seem to choose charities that help human beings when they go on game shows.

I’m not surprised, their ads are effective. I donated £50 as a poor student when I was very drunk after a night out and watched one of their ads 🤣🤣🤣

I won't ever give to animal charities because of figures like this. I'm sure people could sneer at what I do give to though and tell me it's not worthwhile. Which is pointless really, it wouldn't make things better.

I don't watch daytime TV but I see it when I go round my patients' houses and the charity adverts drive me mad, they are so manipulative. Don't tell me that's the point of advertising, I'm not a fool.

i donate money to donkey charities abroad (The Brooke for example). The donkey sanctuary does a lot of work abroad too but I don’t donate to them because I want my money to purely go abroad. In very poor communities, they are extremely reliant on donkeys to make a living and as such my donation is as much to help the people as the donkeys, so it’s not as simple as saying people are choosing donkeys over people. I personally donate to very few charities in this country because I think charities based in poorer countries need my help much more. So I donate to Camfed instead of women’s aid for example

You’d be very surprised about the people thinking about donkeys in other countries. My dad worked for the donkey sanctuary for a huge number of years as he has very specialist knowledge in the care of donkeys. He literally travelled the world to care for donkeys and train local people to undertake the care needed. He always loved to go to countries where the donkey was vital to the household and he could help a family.

When he worked for them in the 80s there was a situation where a number of donkeys were rescued from Spain as they were due to take part in a festival that would have resulted in them being killed or injured. The donations flooded in.

I suppose people feel that animals are more defenceless against cruelty and neglect, their needs are not prioritised and they routinely get worse treatment than humans. For each of the numerous charities I support (including Refuge), there are probably 100 other equally good causes out there. You just can’t do everything.

This doesn’t actually surprise me. I work in philanthropy and animal charities, cancer charities and children’s charities get the lion’s share. It’s a combination of “cute”, relatability ( most people directly or indirectly affected by cancer) and, I think, an element of recognition of lack of agency in that children and animals are less able to impact what happens to them than human adults. There’s also more donations to charities where the link between money and solution is clearer ( give money, donkey gets rescued, sees vet and gets fed)- more nuanced issues such as DV, addiction etc. where the “solution” is less obvious, struggle. For “women and girls” charities there’s also the international aspect whereby donors are possibly more likely to give to charities ex UK focused on girls education or livelihoods as ( rightly or wrongly) they see a bigger problem in, say, Rajasthan vs Lambeth.

Basically lots of reasons- there are v few strategic philanthropists and even then, while they almost all avoid animal charities, they tend to have a pet sector and don’t find outside it.