Social media charity culture

I ignore the lot of them I do not and will never give to charities. Regardless of what some people think of me for not doing the ice bucket challenge.
 
^^+1

I did work with handicap voluntary for 6months after exams at starting work long ago and I enjoyed it and think if more did a small thing like that once it would be better.

Unfortunately there is a lot of kids in this country (should ideally be none) need help and charity begins at home, you cannot help a country that are breeding themselves to starvation.
 
Pawnless Endgame said:
Kinda on-topic: chuggers make me RAAAAEG! They're just so aggressive. I feel like printing one of those t-shirts that have a no-smoking sign, except that it says "chuggers" in the sign instead of a cigarette.
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I think they are bringing in a law next year to get them off the streets. Can't wait because I don't like to be disburbed when shopping, on lunch or walking to work.
 
malachi said:
I think they are bringing in a law next year to get them off the streets. Can't wait because I don't like to be disburbed when shopping, on lunch or walking to work.
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Ahhh that's great news if true! Yeah, can't stand them because they will chase you away from their 'spawn' spots like mobs do in World of Warcraft :p At least Big Issue sellers stick to their spawn spots and don't chase you.
 
Topical - a study identified America's worst charity as Florida based Kid's Wish Network, which pays three cents of every dollar raised to help kids. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/13/us/worst-charities/index.html

-- The 50 worst charities in America devote less than 4% of donations raised to direct cash aid. Some charities gave even less. Over a decade, one diabetes charity raised nearly $14 million and gave about $10,000 to patients. Six spent no cash at all on their cause.
-- Even as they plead for financial support, operators at many of the 50 worst charities have lied to donors about where their money goes, taken multiple salaries, secretly paid themselves consulting fees or arranged fund-raising contracts with friends. One cancer charity paid a company owned by the president's son nearly $18 million over eight years to solicit funds. A medical charity paid its biggest research grant to its president's own for-profit company.
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I just think about a bloke I read about a few weeks ago who, suffering from PTSD, nicked £26 from a charity tin in a shop. He was looking at a significant prison sentence (and rightly so imo). These people seem to get away with it, and probably get honoured by the establishment for philanthropy.
 
This the latest fad, wake up selfies promoted by Stephen Fry, Hugh Grant and Nigella Lawson…
 
shifty_uk said:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...ampaign-and-they-all-need-to-end-9782513.html

Sums it up quite nicely.
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A good part of that article.

"Fundamentally, these campaigns are nothing but rather soulless exercises in narcissistic armchair clicktivism, which allow the participant to feel a false sense of smug satisfaction. But the far more concerning issue is that they may actually be doing some damage.

People donate to the charity in question not because they have given any real thought to the global problems that concern them and where their money will go furthest, but because it is the one that happen to have the trendiest hashtag of the moment. Inevitably, these are linked to large organisations which tend to have big-name ambassadors attached, or well-financed marketing teams. The smaller, or less sexy, charities can’t begin to compete.

And research shows that charity is ultimately cannibalistic. Since money doesn’t appear in a vacuum, if someone is told to donate to one charity, this tends to come out of the pocket of another. Giving What We Can has found that for every $1 raised by these campaigns, 50c would have been given anyway. That is, money now raised by UNICEF means money that will be lost to other organisations."

Personally, it bugs me when people make the act of giving about themselves. It becomes a expression of narcissism more than a real act of charity.

Narj said:
1) Find charities that work with causes you care about
2) Research them and check their books to see if they seem worthwhile
3) Use the Give As You Earn scheme for maximum tax efficiency
4) Win :)

I don't like all the "LOOK AT ME DOING STUFF FOR CHARITY" culture either.
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Indeed, this is a much better way of doing it.
 
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shifty_uk said:
Are we becoming a culture obsessed with broadcasting good will and charity giving via social media?

To start with, I have no issue with the above. I'm all for giving to charities which are close to your heart. These organisations do amazing things for those in need and I admire any cause. However, i thought it maybe worth discussing..

There seems to be a copious and forever increasing amount of requests for money in circulation across social media by companies, friends, colleagues and family members for an endless array of charities(obscure or mainstream) and charity fund raising events like marathons, walks, football, skiing...whatever really. There's also the increase in [often celebrity endorsed] viral campaigns being broadcast across these channels, too.

I'm personally not sure what to think of it, is it all good, are messages becoming lost in the 'look, im giving to charity' culture, are other charities who arent as hot on the social media wagon losing out, should i feel guilty for not organising a pool game and posting a link to JustGiving for it?

Perhaps my facebook/friends/colleagues are all just ridiculously charitable and I'm the only one whose noticed this rise in popularity!

Thoughts?
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It is just marketing. Charities effectively sell a solution to guilt and through these means offer you the opportunity to broadcast that you've assuaged it.
 
It's constant, someone always asking for money on my FB feed and the odd person spacked out because he wasn't going to hit his target. Not only that I work at a large company and people are always sending out sponsorship requests via global email as well.

I guess if it works it's not such a bad thing. My sister stood outside Argos all day for Altzhiemers and raised about £9.50. £5 of which she put in the bucket herself.
 
doofer said:
It's because many charities spend $MILLIONS on marketing. Far too much goes to the marketing compared to the actual charity people are donating to.
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It's not quite as simple as this.

The reason that charities spend millions on marketing is because no one donates to a charity they have never heard of. The most famous charities, unsurprisingly, get the most donations. Charities expect their marketing departments to provide a ROI for the money they spend. If the money donated doesn't go up in response to money spent on marketing then questions will be asked. It's shown to work, which is why so much is spent on marketing.

There seems to be this new trend that people think that charities should spend 100% of donations on the cause. Whilst this is a nice idea, it's idealistic and would never work. Large charities simply could not run successfully without paid staff, marketing, executives on 6 figure salaries etc.

A small charity could run like this if you have several people who are happy to donate their time but even then I would imagine it's difficult.

The point a few of you have made about people on social media boasting about their donations/fundraising events does stand. But then the point of social media is to make yourself look good right?
 
Personally, anything like this on fb is normally a cry for attention in my books. Don't put a status up, go outside and help people. And don't take a selfie midway through changing someones **** bag to brag on fb about helping someone for likes. Have a chat with the old farts in the old folks home.

Grinds my gears.
 
so, you wont like this then?

Charity-Event-small.jpg
 
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