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.

Really interesting link. Thanks.

It isn't about pitting charities against each other, the issue is the attitudes of the UK public - and as others have pointed out, who the media gives more high profile coverage.

To add to my previous post. I've posted on other threads about women I know (who've experienced DV).

One was in a refuge (many women can't get a place because there's a shortage) but returned to her very abusive husband afterwards. Why? Because she was placed in substandard and unsafe temporary accommodation. She's not safe with her husband either but she decided better the unsafe man she knows than unsafe men and women she doesn't.

This isn't where she was "housed", completely different part of the UK, but here's an example of the "safe" housing victims sometimes end up in

The West London estate where families live in 'inhumane' shipping containers and drug dealers beat up mums for complaining
https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/west-london-estate-families-live-27258883

Another woman I know did get social housing. She's very grateful but is nowhere near anyone she knows. She needed to be near support but instead is isolated and struggling (bearing in mind she'd already been isolated from family and friends by her ex). Several councils she applied to, including mine, gatekept.

Those two cases are not isolated. It's the reality for many victims - and an appalling indictment of the UK's failed housing policies.

Although the government priority needs to be more social housing asap, there will still sometimes be a need for emergency accommodation (refuges and other types).

However, there needs to be an end to one size fits all when housing homeless people. Absolutely people with substance issues and ex prisoners need support too, but it's not appropriate to house with DV victims (or disabled people or homeless families).

To address DV, the UK doesn't need people to stop donating to animal charities. It needs more social housing across the country, a supportive benefits system, good CMS system, and improved social services (and other public services including legal aid solicitors trained in DV, etc).

I think the real issue isn't about putting charities against each other. It's that charities shouldn't be the go-to for essential public services. That includes the essential services DV victims often need - social housing, supportive benefits system, safe emergency accomodation, good CMS system, access to DV trained solicitors, and DV trained therapists through the NHS.

I was thinking when 2k prisoners were promised release where would they go. An ex prison officer said that they'd turn to crime and be back inside if wasn't done in an organised way.

There's a slew of hotels for sale nationwide. I've often thought that they could be utilised as emergency accommodation. Three meals a day. Social services, GP etc visiting to sort out benefits, housing,

Our council in North Wales is renting emergency accommodation in England because we really have nowhere left in the county. It's costing a fortune which means our council tax has gone up 10% per annum for the last two years. Our education budget cut 30% in the same period.

The system needs a remodel. If we can efficiently house migrants when they arrive, then we need to house victims of DV in the same prompt manner.

Animal charities get no public funding despite having a quasi policing role.

That's how I feel. All my monthly donations are animal charities in the UK. I also make one off donations to overseas animal charities, including donkeys.

And definitely factors into my donations.

re. various posts about housing.

If the Government (including previous ones) listened to the women who provide DV services, they would know that they all say the primary need is housing.

Yesterday Labour made 2 media attracting announcements about tackling both sexual and domestic violence. Really stupid, after the event stuff.

And instead of listening to DV providers they get caught up in celebrity pictures.

You would have thought given how many other problems are caused by the lack of decent affordable housing that by now one Government would have started to do something but they haven't.

No Government has reversed the right to buy which has desimated social housing. No Government has reversed the insane directive that stop councils using the money from the sale of council housing to build more housing.

And now, thanks to earlier Labour PPP, we have the insane situation that profit making companies can barter with local authorities about how many "affordable" (usually out of most people's price range) houses in return for private housing.

Added to this, which seems so symbolic of the sheer level of non functioning, non joined up thinking we now live in, that private companies building these so called affordable homes are doing such shoddy work that Housing Associations are refusing to accept them because they now from recent experience that the level of repairs these new builds require makes them unaffordable.

There were some comments earlier in the thread about the comfort pets can bring. And it is known that some women wont leave their abusive partner because of not wanting to leave a pet behind. (There is also a lot of research that shows abuse of pets can be an indicator of a DV perpetrator.)

Not a solution to all problems but for anyone who doesn't know there are quite a few animal charities that provide a fostering sevice of pets belonging to women escaping a violent home.

I have heard that there a quite a few small, local charities that do this, but the larger organisations are https://refuge4pets.org.uk/ , https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/how-we-help/ownership/freedom , https://www.cats.org.uk/what-we-do/cp-lifeline

No Government has reversed the insane directive that stop councils using the money from the sale of council housing to build more housing

That's because there was no such directive.

Even in the Thatcher years, councils could use the proceeds to build more council houses (or indeed any other purpose) once they had paid off their debt The idea was that assets would be sold, councils would thereby be freed of debt and its repayments, and would be able to go forwards on a sounder footing.

Some councils have indeed built new council houses.

As the discount given to those buying was so huge, there was not way this was to pay of debt, and in fact much of it went straight to central Government.

Its a complete fudge, and was to achieve 2 things, give the Tories money by selling off the countries assests and social engineering to create a US style mentality about home ownership.

Which was further proved to be rubbish economics when the housing boom in the US then caused a global financial crash.

You only have to look at European countries, some quite to the right, who never fell for US individualism, so that now many have flourishing social housing, which now only does the job of providing housing, but means it forces private providers to be competitive rather than building houses not to be homes but financial investments.

And helped contribute to the ridiculously every rising cost of renting.

“If it were not for the right to buy the council housing sector as a whole would have generated huge surpluses [from rental income] and the rise in real rents ... would not have been necessary.” Or to put it more directly: home ownership was made possible for wealthier council tenants through discounts paid for by their poorer neighbours.

Its part of the same daft concept that privitising utilities will provide a better service, which will never be true, because share holders will constantly milk the companies for dividends.

Much as I blame the Tories, and other politicians for any number of things, I also blame us a voters for being so easily conned into believing this fairy stories.

Your whole thread starts with a post pitting two charities against each other. It’s distasteful and doesn’t do victims of domestic abuse any favours.

All the valid points made about the support needed by DV charities could have been made without dismissing the suffering of animals that can feel as much pain as you can, and without disrespecting the people who do a good thing by supporting them.

There’s nothing wrong with the public attitude to charity. We are fairly generous on the whole and sadly there are a very wide range of causes for donators to choose from. If it’s about media coverage and public perceptions of DA victims, that could be discussed without belittling animal suffering.

Your whole thread starts with a post pitting two charities against each other. It’s distasteful and doesn’t do victims of domestic abuse any favours.

Clearly you haven't bothered to read either my OP or other comment.s

PLEASE NOTE the thread was started because yet another newspaper, and to be honest Refuge itself, have started a campaign using this, as they have done in previous years.

So NO I am NOT doing this.

I am pointing out that it is being done.

That is one of the functions of FWR, to take a look at how the media whether mainstream or social is reflecting women's issues, because like it or not, this is where most people get their information about what is going on in society.

So thanks to me starting this thread you now know that this is a campaign strategy by Refuge and the Independent newspaper.

Assuming you think it is really bad, I would think you would want comment to both organisations I tell them how shocking it is.

Saying it here isn't going to stop them (and also isn't what the thread is about).

Please do let us know what their replies are to your criticism.

It's not really a feminism issue though. You've chosen DV charities to compare the Donkey sanctuary's income to. But you could choose pretty much any other causes with the same result. Animal charities get far more from public donations than most other charities do. Charities helping humans with anything other than cancer, rely on corporate funders or family trusts, because they simply can't get the British public to reach into their pockets the way they do for animals.

I'm a trustee of a non- animal charity that focuses on helping an un-cute sector of society. We try to fundraise from the public, but every time, what we raise barely covers the costs of either publicity or running the event, or both. So instead we employ someone to write grants to the large funders, who are less driven by sentimentality, and more by need.

Clearly you haven't bothered to read either my OP or other comment.

I've read every post and I'm at a loss as to what point you're trying to make. You've veered from a post about a donkey charity to a rant about Labour housing policy then a rant about Tories.

If you want a discussion then pick one topic and be coherent about it.

Absolutely this.
At one point I was donating to about 14 charities a month by DD.
All animal charities.

It was not sent straight to central government.

Yes, it was hard to pay off local council debt, because there was such high levels and no other real prospect of ways to pay it off.

Yes, it did also change the attitude to home ownership - but that's unrelated to where the proceeds of sakes went.

Yes, councils built more council housing when the could

No, they do not have to use the proceeds to do that any more (since 2021)
Cash from Right To Buy sales will no longer be reserved for new council housing, government announces | The Independent

It's saddening to see so little relative support for women's charities. Animal charities always do well, however, and donkey charities are well-advertised and the donkeys' suffering is poignant. Not surprising they get lots of donations.

It's saddening to see so little relative support for women's charities

It isn't a feminist thing, as I've already said. Try raising money for a charity that supports men.

The organisation I work for supports a cohort that used to be entirely female. Now, through circumstances that are nothing to do with us, the cohort is almost entirely men. Donations from the public have plummeted.

This is an animals vs people problem. And if anything, men get an even more raw deal. Even when it involves cancer (which usually trumps the animal bias).

The firm of which I am partner supports a d8fferent charity every year for a year- as does probably every other firm of similar or larger size in my sector. The charities are nominated by staff and a short list of three is made up for everyone to vote on. Animal charities are specifically excluded. Corporate donations are very unlikely to be made to animal charities.

The charities in our case are always medical, including one year mental health.

I've never been involved in the short list process. I suspect anything which could remotely be controversial for clients or staff is removed.

I cant see the point of donating to a women's refuge. Where would the money actually go. Probably to woke do-gooders that run them. In any case the women would be entitled to claim benefits and social housing.

Yep, me great aunt left them her house; despite me looking after her for years and supporting her financially and every other way. She didn’t even like donkeys-she liked cats! No idea where the idea came from but suspect it wasn’t her

Haven’t read all the posts but I am going to be very frank. I am a charity manager- I work with vulnerable families day in day out. You get desensitised and jaded. However show me a Facebook post for a wee dog that’s been harmed or needs a home and I am regularly in tears. I would suspect that is why people give more to animal charities.

I think another consideration is where refuges rank vs other “women and girls” sector charities because you probably have to consider the whole sector when considering where women rank vs animals - I’m a trustee of a mid size charity ( admittedly overseas focus) and women and girls is what most of our corporate donors want to fund but typically at the crossover with education, livelihoods or RSH and with a young people focus. A friend who advises “ new money” HNW donors sees similar things- gender equity is very popular with her ( predominantly male) clients but it tends to be at a crossover with children and adolescents rather than adult women in their 30s and above.