Does anyone donate £2 a month to charity?

[Solari]

Better in my pocket than theirs imo.

Although I will give change to collectors on the street and homeless people usually take advantage of me when inebriated.

When I was in sydney a few months ago, I gave $$$ while drunk to homeless people... only because seeing them sleeping on the floor with cockroaches running all over them made my skin crawl

 

[Energize]

I don't donate to charity because money gets wasted, as demonstrated by the rspcc's £30m expenditure on putting people in the street to hassle people and beg for donations, I only donate to fund specific things where the money is accounted for.

 

[J86]

I often drop a couple of quid in the various ones that hang around outside sainsburys!

 

[deko]

tenner a month to the local hospice.

only give anything to the jakies when they do something deserving, like the one guy asking me for a bottle of coke to mix his vodka with, gladly gave him a quid. i like a bit of humour in the homeless.

 

[Atom]

Some of the replys here are a disgrace, people going on about why give to charity.... You may require the services of the achievements these people have made one day..

I would rather give my money supporting animals over humans anyday. The way we treat wildlife is terrible. Humans are ruling this planet and consideration should be given to all life..

I donate to Cancer Research UK, Diabetes UK, Born Free Foundation and I am trying to donate blood if I can fit it around work..

 

[Flukester]

charity is a good thing but some of them are getting way to pushy...

for some reason in bournemouth every sat 'save the children' workers form a long line and forcibly try and stop everyone, some of them are even rude if you refuse to help and call you a 'disgrace' or have said 'guess you dont have children then!!'

they are all waving official charity cards, and have uniforms... are these collectors on commision ?, i've got a good mind to report them for being plain rude.

if they are official save the children collectors and behave like that im not having anything to do with them


problem is a lot of these charitys are so large massive amounts of cash get tied up in infrastructure and wages, and some of the boss's get MASSIVE wages, that shouldnt happen.

 

[-Ad-]

No, and from what I have seen of them, never will !

 

[spitzoid]

Some of the replys here are a disgrace, people going on about why give to charity.... You may require the services of the achievements these people have made one day..

I would rather give my money supporting animals over humans anyday. The way we treat wildlife is terrible. Humans are ruling this planet and consideration should be given to all life..

I donate to Cancer Research UK, Diabetes UK, Born Free Foundation and I am trying to donate blood if I can fit it around work..

The replies are a disgrace in your opinion because you have accepted that these charities are the absolute answer to the challenges that the world faces. Like I said in an earlier post; charities only exist because most of the governments of the world have ****ed things up so tremendously, leaving huge voids between rich and poor, and a crazy prioritization in their policies - favouring financial services and heavy industry/defence etc. over redistribution of wealth and public services etc.

Medical research and the like should be properly funded in the first place, same can be said for organisations like the RNLI etc. I'm not knocking what these people do but I'd rather campaign for them to receive appropriate funding rather than donate and only have a small percentage of it actually go towards the cause.

I give blood as well but consider that an obligation, not charity. I am sure you can "fit it round work" if you really wanted to, as you seem so ethically and morally idealistic?

 

[EffBee]

Beware of donating to charity via those people who come knocking at your door backed up by TV ads.

I was tempted last year into looking into one of the agencies that run these operations for charities. Inearly fell off my chair when I found out that my commission for getting one person to sign up for £2 per month would be £50. On top of that - due to the fact that the operation ran as a kind of pyramid scheme with the people at the bottom on a self employed commission only basis supporting several layers of management each taking a further chunk of the subscription - even more of your money goes to collection fees than my measly £50.

There is a little unreported financial scandal at work here.

Edit: Also, don't forget that here in the UK we have a welfare state. By our higher payments to government we are effectively supporting a giant charity which ensures that no person in our country, for instance, need live in fear of not getting appropriate medical treatment due to cost as happens in less civilised countries like the United States. Can you imagine what it would be like to watch your loved ones sufferring and expiring simply due to the fact that there isn't enough money in your family budget to pay for medical treatment and drugs.

 

[FrostedNipple]

I don't give money i give my blood. I am superior to you lot.

 

[monkeysmith]

Monthly donation to the WSPA. Like some others, prefer to donate to animal charities.

 

[Richdog]

I give nothing to charity, I only throw the odd quid to buskers on the street that distinguish themselves. Never been a charity giver either, all the money has been best used in my pocket to be honest, and at least I know exactly where it's going..

Perhaps, but some of these things the government really should be doing. The NHS is paid for by taxation because it's in society's best interest. Is it not also in society's best interest that you are saved when your boat sinks or that children aren't abused?

Ok, so how do we decide which charities out of the gazillion around are worthy?

And can't compare national health care with a lifeboat or child abuse charity... the scales are monumentally different. There's a rason NHS support comes out of tax, and the various charities don't. A very obvious reason.

 

[fluffmct]

I don't donate to charity because money gets wasted, as demonstrated by the rspcc's £30m expenditure on putting people in the street to hassle people and beg for donations, I only donate to fund specific things where the money is accounted for.

Charities have to declare where their income is spent and to be honest if I could, I'd tick a box that says my money is only spent on fundraising. I'd rather my money is invested and tripled or quadrupled back than being spent as it is on a project.

Also not sure if you mean the RSPCA or the NSPCC but your example shows that you have to do some research before deciding on a charity you will support for the rest of your life.

 

[fini]

Ok, so how do we decide which charities out of the gazillion around are worthy?

That would be for a select group to develop a green paper on, but I would imagine things to take in to account would be:
1)whether the charity wants to be nationalised
2)what percentage of their income would be saved if no income generation activities took place?
3)are the activities of the charity overlapping with a previously nationalised charity (for example there must be at least 20 alzheimer's charities - only one would really need to be nationalised)
4)how important to society at wide is the issue the charity is addressing (e.g. cancer research UK would be more likely to be nationalised than Climate Outreach & Information Network)
5) is the charity political at all? For example, most of the activities of the Campaign for Better Transport could be considered political - this would bar it from being nationalised.

I'm sure that there are far more things to take in to account, but these 5 points would be a good place to start. Equally you could just take the top x amount.

EDIT:In fact, if you look at charities that make over £10 million each year and operate nationally you're only left with just under 400 charities, however, many, if not most of these are special interest and/or groups that run themselves as charities, but are not charities in the traditional sense (e.g. the College of Law).


EDIT2: Right, removing
a)colleges
b)religious groups
c)'duplicates' (where a charity is registered under two numbers for admin purposes)
d)charities with one major donor (and they thus don't have income generation activities)
e)chartered institutes/trade bodies

Takes the list of charities mentioned above down to just under 300. I'm sure that applying the 5 stage test above would probably reduce that list to about 150. If we say that on average they spend a third of their money on activities that can now be reduced/removed entirely (fund raising, shared admin etc) and that on average their income generation is £50 million (an overly conservative estimate) then we are looking at a total saving of £900 million, which could be ploughed in to each of those charity's core activities.

And can't compare national health care with a lifeboat or child abuse charity... the scales are monumentally different. There's a rason NHS support comes out of tax, and the various charities don't. A very obvious reason.

A better example would be to compare the Fire Brigade (paid for by taxes) to the RNLI (which is a charity) - if your boat starts sinking and you need saving is it that different from your house being on fire and needing saving? If you are in British territorial waters surely you should be able to expect as much help as if you were on British land?

 

[Richdog]

A better example would be to compare the Fire Brigade to the RNLI - if your boat starts sinking and you need saving is it that different from your house being on fire and needing saving? If you are in British territorial waters surely you should be able to expect as much help as if you were on British land?

Err... shall we compare the risk of a house being on fire to a boat being rescued? Millions of people living in packed houses vs a tiny fraction of this going around in boats? Again, silly comparison when we're talking in terms of what comes out of taxes.

I think your viewpoint is a tad too idealised, and therefore (as is generally the case with idealism) unrealistic.

 

[Cosimo]

The charity spoilers are at it again, they’ve got nothing better to say this afternoon.

 

[fini]

Err... shall we compare the risk of a house being on fire to a boat being rescued?

In both cases if rescue does not occur the occupants will die.

Millions of people living in packed houses vs a tiny fraction of this going around in boats?

True, but it's not like the RNLI aren't hugely busy. They are saving people nationwide every day. They're spending roughly £150 million each year doing so, of which nearly £50 immediately disappears on admin and fund generation activities.

I think your viewpoint is a tad too idealised, and therefore (as is generally the case with idealism) unrealistic.

I think it's relatively pragmatic. I don't know what the average that people spend on charities is across all tax payers, but let's say it's £50 a year. Is there really any difference if that £50 a year is given after tax by a direct debit or is taken out as part of the tax you pay? The answer is 'yes'. In the second instance, as I have demonstrated above, millions if not billions of pounds could be saved in efficiency savings each year.

EDIT: In 2003, £7.1 billion was given to charities across the UK according to the BBC. At a population of 60,943,912 (CIA) we're thus looking at each person giving on average around £116.50 to charity each year.

 

[starfighter]

tend to agree I pay enough tax an have worries that this money doesn't get where it is supposed to.

Anyone can set up a charity and collect money, they pay themselves a wage etc. hmmm.

A business has no acountability other than profit, it doesn't make sense to have a business that makes no profit, its success cannot be measured and so it isn't self regulating. It would be better done by th gov, even their little accountability is as good s this.


So once I have enough money to laa di daa around and help people I will.

 

[TheMagicPirate]

I give a tenner a month via 'Give as you Earn'.

I lose £5 to NSPCC and £5 to cancer research but they get about 7 quid each apparently.

It comes out my pay before I even see it.

 

[roboffer]

I dont donate monthly but we are trying to raise about £4500-5000 for Save The Children by trekking the Great Wall of China next year. Got a fair few things planned over the course, and off to a decent start already. My Mrs was going to donate per month, but we thought this would raise more money.