Charity?

robgilmo

I heard on the radio today that 20 million was raised through charity to help the victims of the tower block fire yet only 800k became available, meanwhile people are still waiting for the financial help promised by the government, what the?

Bygone_Tones

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40610825

robgilmo

From what I can read, they collect 20 million then give people ''grants'' of what they think they need rather than distribute the full 20 million among the victims, Ka Ching! Kicking people in the guts when they are down if it is.

mellowsun

Sounds like a lot has been siphoned off into someone's pocket or into charities' bank accounts earning interest.

GoldenEraGuitars

Apparently the Red Cross have had to store a lot of donations in a warehouse in Cheshire due to the influx. They were keeping the designer clobber for their eBay listings, normal brands for their high street shops and damage and or stained stuff for recycling.

The cash raised... that's another matter. I never heard much about it.

What I do think (if it's true) is that these victims have been treat abysmally. Then again, I'm relying on the media for my info... 

Freebird

I have a relative who used to work for a charity, and they have some very interesting stories to tell. Charities hardly ever help the end users directly, the money gets moved around various entities who all take their cut, before providing some kind of service that you have to jump through hoops to access. And that is without mentioning all the high teas at Claridge's for the bigwigs, while the staff have to buy their own biscuits! It goes without saying that I now think twice before handing over any money to a large charity. 

Drew_TNBD

Charities are crooks. Try telling chuggers that though.

thumpingrug

Whooooow there!  Hang on a minute.  I feel I have to come to the defence of the vast majority of charities at this point.   I work for a charity and have working in the voluntary sector for over 30 years.  I sit on the trustee board (as a volunteer) of our local Council for Voluntary Service, and have worked with local disability charities and voluntary groups for years.     My own charity receive an income, we employ a small number of people, (3.5 FTEs) in my office who support 40 volunteers who do the bulk of the interactions with the public.   Our volunteers undertake a training course taking a minimum of 200 hours of study before we can let them work with the public and because our work has serious implication in people lives we provide close supervision and counselling for them.  This has a cost as do our premises, IT systems, telephones information systems and the vast amounts of insurance cover we are required to have.   Whilst part of a national body each local office is on its own to raise funds and we work hard to ensure we have just about what we need each year to keep going.  We do not use Chuggers but try to get the majority of the money e need through corporate donations, though will never refuse a donation from a member of the public.   Ive never been to Claridges, the nearest being a cheese sarnie buffet paid for by the local water company when I spoke at an event on Poverty.    There are 1000's of charities (too many to be honest) but please don't make us all out to be greedy bastards.

I suspect that with Grenfell Tower its just too much coming too quickly.  The distribution needs to be coordinated, the stuff needs to be stored and sorted and help needs to be provided that is appropriate.  That can only happen following a full assessment of everyones needs so that prioritisation can take place.  And who does this assessment for for the charity.  They don't have staff just sitting on their arses waiting for a tragedy to happen.  They will have been busy doing other work.  People will have to be pulled from multiple areas, some will need some training and induction, they will need somewhere work from, ways of communicating and sharing information (with all the data protection crap that goes with it) all to ensure that help gets where its most needed.

Charities do a massive amount of invisible work, especially so over the past 8 years of austerity where other support services have been cut back.   Give those of us working at the coal face a bit of a break.

WezV

How many hoops should you have to jump through to access your share of the £20m?

I think there needs to be some steps to try and ensure it goes to the right people.

thumpingrug

WezV said:

How many hoops should you have to jump through to access your share of the £20m?

I think there needs to be some steps to try and ensure it goes to the right people.

Well, first you have to establish that they actually lived there.  For some thats easy but there will be chancers trying it on and how do you filter them out?  Proof of address for most when up in flames, so its down to official records.   In addition the Govt has already coughed up £5000 per family for immediate needs, which can only be clothes.  They are all still living in temporary accommodation so until they have permanent home no need for furniture.  You suddenly give them their share of this £20m which i recon works out to be around £60k each person what are they actually going to do with it.  For a single person its not enough to buy a house in London, even a family of 5 wouldnt be able to do so in that area and most of them do not what to leave the area.  And given that they have all been promised new rented accommodation why would they spend it on housing.  So once they have a property would it not be better to ensure its fully equipped and decorated.   Given the numbers a bulk deal could be done with a furniture supplier to ensure best value.

What about future support needs.  Some of these people will need lifelong counselling and help.  Their will be cases of PTSD for years.  Some funds need to be set aside to cover this

Its not just about handing over a wedge of cash and walking away.

CabbageCat

Maybe we should have just given each of the Grenfell survivors a container full of unsorted, unwashed donated clothing to sort through and tidy up themselves.

ESBlonde

I won't sign up for regular donations, I avoid the big national/international charities and give generously of my time and money to local charities where I can see the difference made.

chillidoggy

I make donations to the local charity of my choice, rather than to central office. That way it gets to where I want it.

Chuggers are a pain up the town, but they're not the only ones, though. The aggressive ambulance chasers are usually camped out there, too. One day, I'm going to deliberately fall over one of their awning legs to see how I do with a claim.

Drew_TNBD

thumpingrug said:

WezV said:

How many hoops should you have to jump through to access your share of the £20m?

I think there needs to be some steps to try and ensure it goes to the right people.

Well, fist you have to establish that they actually lived there.  For some thats easy but there will be chancers trying it on and how do you filter them out?

You don't. You give them a chunk of the money that they don't deserve, because socialism.

robgilmo

thumpingrug said:

WezV said:

How many hoops should you have to jump through to access your share of the £20m?

I think there needs to be some steps to try and ensure it goes to the right people.

Well, fist you have to establish that they actually lived there.  For some thats easy but there will be chancers trying it on and how do you filter them out?  Proof of address for most when up in flames, so its down to official records.   In addition the Govt has already coughed up £5000 per family for immediate needs, which can only be clothes.  They are all still living in temporary accommodation so until they have permanent home no need for furniture.  You suddenly give them their share of this £20m which i recon works out to be around £60k each person what are they actually going to do with it.  For a single person its not enough to but a house in London, even a family of 5 wouldnt be able to do so in that area and most of them do not what to leave the area.  And given that they have all been promised new rented accommodation why would they spend it on housing.  So once they have a property would it not be better to ensure its fully equipped and decorated.   Given the numbers a bulk deal could be done with a furniture supplier to ensure best value.

What about future support needs.  Some of these people will need lifelong counselling and help.  Their will be cases of PTSD for years.  Some funds need to be set aside to cover this

Its not just about handing over a wedge of cash and walking away.

Lots of people apparently have yet to see any government money, but it does make May look better on the telly.

strtdv

Charities seem to be a bit of a mixed bag. We give regularly, as well as one-of donations for things like emergency appeals, but we generally stick to a few charities that have shown themselves to be ethical and effective in how they use the money.

Charity is complex, very often the charities are working in situations with corrupt and beurocratic governments, and you want to help in a way which genuinely improves people's lives/lifts them out of poverty.

Often I'll support projects that are practical, eg provide a village with clean water, pay for a child's education, buy a family a pair of goats etc.

Even then things can get complicated. Fairtrade coffee for instance makes life worse for growers and workers who aren't in the Fairtrade cooperative.

Fairtrade works by paying a guaranteed minimum price for coffee in exchange for growers meeting certain welfare and wage standards for their employees, which means they don't get penalised for over-producing (Global demand for coffee is pretty static).
This leads to a fall in the price of coffee, which the Fairtrade growers don't suffer from, but anyone else growing coffee does. It also tends not to be the poorest growers in Fairtrade schemes.

57Deluxe

Are you offended when you walk past those Charity "Hello and how are you today"  agents and *do not* get accosted cos you look too poor to bother with??

Tavernor

An old boss I had (became decent mates but lost touch a long time ago) owns a sales and marketing business (I'll not name it as I'm going to sort of bash it here) he ended up with after climbing a pyramid scheme. It's essentially a group of 'employees' (self employed contracts) doing door to door charity fundraising via monthly direct debits. Legitimate charities, UNICEF and the like. In-between jobs I did it for a little while and actually had a ball, the system works by keeping staff in a state of near heart attack inducing enthusiasm and was subsequently a lot of fun.

A very interesting insight into charity fundraising which I'll share with you perhaps against my better judgement...

Signing someone up for a couple of quid a week would earn the rep £35, £20 up front and the remaining £15 six months later if the customer, which is what they were, had kept their DD running. This ensured profit for the charity, if the customer had cancelled their DD in this time then there was clawback and the amount taken back from the rep. Worked out as a minimum £8.50 a month for the charity before gift aid. Average DD ran for three years which with gift aid meant the average sign up was about £450 (or possibly £350, can't remember or be arsed to do the maths) to the charity. £450 average return for £70 investment (other £35 accounted for in a bit) with a guarantee not to be out of pocket makes absolute sense for anyone so it's not really fair to chastise the charity too much. Prime time TV adds cost ridiculous amounts and the return is minimal.

I've always enjoyed chatting shit so took to it pretty well and could make £100 a day pretty often (5 sign ups). Did the maths when I left and that meant that, being conservative in my estimates, I'd generated over 100k in predicted revenue for the charities I'd represented. If nothing else looked good on my CV.

The company actually received about £70 for each sign up, £35 going into my mates pocket. Very very high turnover of staff but a lot of them with no shortage of new prospects. You wouldn't find out what you were doing until you had the job, other than being promised high OTE's. 95% of people couldn't do it and if you couldn't then it's no income. Close to 80 hours a week so pretty soul destroying if you can't sell. It's f-ing hard work too, so spare a thought for the next charity cold caller who knocks on your door. Trust me when I say a bit of kindness goes a long way when you've been making no money for 5 hours in freezing rain whilst having the odd bit of abuse. Don't feel obliged to sign up, just be nice about it.

Part of keeping everyone enthusiastic enough was the promise of riches if they climbed the pyramid. Very very few people do, but trust me when I say those riches are absolutely absurd for those that do manage it. Take running costs for the business out of the equation and the boss/friend made (if memory serves) around 100k in his first year as a managing director with pretty much exponential increases for the next couple of years (lost touch since then). It wasn't bollocks either, saw the proof of the pudding. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he's on close to or more than 500k a year now, he'll certainly have hit millionaire status a while ago and before he hit 30 to boot. He'll have promoted a few people to manage their own branches which he gets cash from as well as 20k a year flat rate from above for each. They'll do the same, more money for next to no more work, and so on. A pyramid. I got wrapped up in chasing the carrot for a while, at the time I thought it was unfair if the outside world looked harshly upon such a noble cause. After all, what does it matter how much you are earning as long as the charity is receiving substantially more? They would be worse off without my help I reasoned.

A boast which may well rile a few of you further is that a clever accountant meant that at least while I was there he was paying zero tax. Essentially paid himself a tiny salary and kept his winnings tied up in the business, don't know the finer details of how that element worked.

It's a real moral dilemma for the charity as it's by far the most cost effective way of raising cash but it's impossible to really justify the ludicrous money people like my old mate are getting for it. For me the villain of the opera are the MDs of the companies raising the cash, being indispensable does not mean you should take more than you need to survive if it's from a charity. It does mean charities generally allocate a large amount of money raised towards future fundraising which accounts for a decent bit of sterling not going where the punter would romanticise it going to.

The people towards the top of the tree are rich beyond anyone's wildest dreams, paying themselves bonuses (saw the cheques 'presented' at a yearly motivational type event) which bankers would be jealous of. I chased cash excessively when I was a bit younger and one job in the financial services I had paid very very well (made well over 4k in a single day once without being too vulgar about it) but I'd be delusional to think I'll ever make as much.

I've just reread my post and I'm going to submit it as a reply (if you're reading this then that much is obvious) but I'm currently on the cusp of deleting the whole thing. Nothing I've said is false but, and I'm going to sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat here, the press have a history of trying to get dirt on this pyramid scheme and I've said more about its workings here than I've read about in any redtop articles. The guy I worked for was a mate while I was there, although the cynic in me questions his motives retrospectively. Regardless, I don't want this to somehow make waves for him *takes off tinfoil hat*.

TL:DR: Maybe for the best.

WezV

I really hate the door to door charity collectors.  When did it become okay for a charity to send groups of 20  or more students out in force?

They seem to adopt a mob mentality that makes them extra pushy. I have had a few that actually became offensive when I have refused.  Even the nice ones act like you have just kicked a puppy.

you hear an army of them coming down the street.  I don't even open the door for them now.

Ravenous

Tavernor said:

Close to 80 hours a week so pretty soul destroying if you can't sell. It's f-ing hard work too, so spare a thought for the next charity cold caller who knocks on your door.

No. Nothing personal against you, and I have a monthly DD to a charity, but I never, EVER respond to charity people on the doorstep.

(Just saying.)

Chalky

thumpingrug said:

WezV said:

How many hoops should you have to jump through to access your share of the £20m?

In addition the Govt has already coughed up £5000 per family for immediate needs, which can only be clothes.  

You suddenly give them their share of this £20m which i recon works out to be around £60k each person what are they actually going to do with it.

Its not just about handing over a wedge of cash and walking away.

Perfect description of the problem with charities.  

I'm certain that the majority of donors thought "The money I'm giving will go straight into the pockets of the survivors who lived there".  But no, it has to get stuck in red tape, and processes, and assessments, and overheads will whittle it down to three-fifths of buggerall in the end. And in 5 years there will be calls for a judicial inquiry into what happened to all the money.

Overseas charities do just the same and the local community leaders nick Bob Geldof's line "Just give us the effing money".  Charities have the arrogance of "We know what's best for people" and then spend the majority of the donations paying their OWN salaries while they decide 'what's best'.