Are charities a business?
 

Are some conning us?
are some taking big cuts for themselves?
are people suffering needlessly when charities that are supposed to be there to cancel the suffering, have millions of pounds in charity money in their bank accounts but they're not using it for the reason it's meant for?

Re: Are charities a business?
 

I'd say most charities have had to "professionalise" over the last 10-15 years, as government funding and funding in general becomes more of a challenge, However, I do still think the vast majority of charities are there to do charitable work.

There are of course a few who are basically tax dodges, and some that may prioritise spending differently to how you'd expect, but at the end of the day if you're generating profits for shareholders, you're not a charity.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Biggest tax scam around is charitable foundations.

Big charities have CEO's on pay scales similar to corporations

Charity shops are no longer somewhere to go for something cheap, the only difference between them and normal shops is their rent is cheaper and the staff work for free

Appeals for disasters adverts appear on the TV as an emergency as people are dying despite the charities sitting on millions of pounds, use that, oh no you can't because it's set aside for future project and fundraising etc. Make no mistake charity is big business these days imo

Re: Are charities a business?
 

That's how I see it.
it's like the RSPCA started out with £1 say.
people donated money to look after animals. and the money is there to treat the animals. that's what the donating people want it to be used for.

but they have millions of pounds of that very money sitting in their bank. and telling people that they have to pay for treatment.

use the money that you have in the bank that was once only £1?
no. that's not what it's there for.

same with "disasters and people dying"
they're going to die as from today if we don't donate.
even though they have millions of pounds of the very same money they asked for sitting in their bank accounts.

a true business. not really the true definition of a charity.
somebody will say you should expect to pay something in the case of the RSPCA.
but what if those millions of donators gave that money for that very reason?
so that people didn't have to pay. and the animal above all comes first?

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Over the years I have approached several charities for help or advice for our disabled twins. The standard answer boils down to "We raise money, we don't give out information or help".

One charity said they could not give me any information as their boss was "on an extended holiday and wouldn't be back for a few more months".

So for this household, charity begins at home.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

The thing that gets me is the "subcontracting" that goes on regarding collecting donations. I work for a charity (a reasonably large one, but Wales only) and we don't sub out donations (I think the only place where we have to pay a fee is via JustGiving or similar). I also donate to charities locally where I know the good cause and support it (for example the local Orthopaedic Hospital).

What I don't do is give on the doorstep to people who have clearly been sent on a "round" knocking on doors for a subcontracted company. The most recent example was someone collecting for Tenovous. A pleasant young lady with a Tenovous vest knocks on the door and starts offering the usual script. I kindly point out that there's a tenovous shop on the high street in town five miles away and that I always donate through that.

It must be a total coincidence that all of these "collectors" seem to be about student age and have Mancunian accents (I live in North Wales) and seem to turn up about 10 mins after the bus has been...

Re: Are charities a business?
 

of course they need your to fund their offices etc.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

If a charity immediately gave away all the money that had been donated it would fold pretty quickly. They do need to be set up to deal with soliciting more donations, managing the money and managing the logistics of getting that money to where it would be needed. Medical charities need to investigate which research is worthy of funding for example. Red Cross and Oxfam often have to work in complicated places to access and work. All of them need to ensure they keep getting funding to carry on doing what they do and that also costs money.

Yes the Red Cross could empty it's bank accounts at the next crisis but then they won't be around to help the next time. Staff, equipment, travel, medicines, offices, and the ability to process future donations don't come free.

Listen to a interview with Bill Gates about his charity. It is mostly his money and that of his wealthy backers but many times he has talked about the amount of effort, logistics and time that happens behind the scenes to make everything work.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

It does seem that there are some bad apples that are far more business than charity.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Are there any links to which charities you're talking about & their bank balances, running expenses, CEO salaries etc?

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Thank God you're here Damien or else we wouldn't have been able to work that out for ourselves and imo there's a big difference between international aid charities and a UK animal charity, what emergencies are they planning for? there's a big difference between having a few quid tucked away for emergencies and investing millions on the stock market, sometimes in dubious companies to say the least as well

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27607320




---------- Post added at 06:54 ---------- Previous post was at 06:54 ----------

Loads of links, they're very transparent about it, seeing as we mentioned oxfam

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ts-24m-surplus

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Well one certainly wants a corporate HQ:

Paywall linky

Re: Are charities a business?
 

I know that way back TEAR fund (The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund) operated by all monies to TEAR fund went to "where needed". The running of TEAR fund was by the Evangelical Alliance which was another charity.
Maybe other charities need to do similar if they don't already but then they may not get any funds to the "management fund".
Another issue charities can have is people donating for a specific cause that can't then be used elsewhere. I heard comments that Great Ormond Street had issues where some parent started to collect for a "scanner" and then that money couldn't be used to actually run the hospital. They had other such pots for capital projects but were in need of money for operational issues.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Something needs to be done about these behemoth money making machines, they're out of control

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-aged-92.html

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Yeap, tax free money laundering operations. It's relatively easy to set up a charity; you become the CEO and your family/cronies members. Write some BS to justify the status, help people of "hardship" of some type or another

then companies/people donate to the charity instead of paying you/family/cronies. You spend the money and justify it as charity work.

How about setting up a wine charity, and organise wine parties in Central London or Surrey? Ooooooops, has been done to death, too many of those. Google "wine charity" ;) and for legal reasons I am not saying/implying that any one of those is doing something illegal.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

yes they are a business with rather well paid directors most of what is donated lines their pockets

Re: Are charities a business?
 

They certainly employ 'businesses' in order to do things like raising funds. Chuggers are worse than cold callers IMHO.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

You can include charitable status private schools in this debate as well.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Calls for 'olive's law'

http://m.westerndailypress.co.uk/PM-...ail/story.html

Re: Are charities a business?
 

when you think and know that in many cases of the constant hounding. it was just to get more money for themselves. and not the poor dying children and animals.

they obviously use the money on themselves.
most of them have millions in the bank.
and a lot of them are starting to overstep their mark lately.
to the extent that that a lot of them need sorting out and told to stop using sad piano music and puppy dogs eyes.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Felt sad for the old lady who committed suicide from Bristol who was constantly hounded by charities for funds. Hang there heads in shame.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Another day another charity mugging story, it's okay though they're sorry, sorry they didn't get the cash, sorry for the bad publicity etc

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...ldrens-5795365

Re: Are charities a business?
 

The charities need to wake up, the public are becoming sick of them and their shoddy tactics

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-UK-RSPCA.html

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Whilst not strictly a business, this shows what goes on all too often:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-33108982

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Charity boiler room tactics being investigated

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/shop...ous-lists.html

Re: Are charities a business?
 

They've highlighted this a couple of times on R4's You and Yours consumer programme. Some very dodgy tactics like selling contributor lists to other charities and subcontracting cold calling to aggresive call centre staff.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

There have been so many scams involving 'charities'..the one I really dislike are the clothes collection bags..I refuse to use them for discarded clothes.We just use them for rubbish bags instead.I prefer to go to one of the 5 charities in my local high street and donate my old clothes to them.Also I won't give to collectors outside supermarkets except the Poppy Appeal of course.Not all of them are legit.
As for the begging letters. I use my common sense and bin them.I also use an answer phone that nicely sorts out those annoying phone calls..they just hang up and move on.

---------- Post added at 11:12 ---------- Previous post was at 11:09 ----------

Oh and the poll could do with an option of not all charities are business orientated..;)

Re: Are charities a business?
 

All the right buzz words used, wonder how long it'll be before it's as if this never happened and they're doing the same crap as before

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34168129

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Re: Are charities a business?
 

It's a never ending story, imo they have lost sight of what charity should be about and are behaving as bad as any corporation

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/uk-charitie...-wills-1533923

Re: Are charities a business?
 

my good lady asked me "what about the begging letters" my reply was "just keep sending them out"

Re: Are charities a business?
 

you should add "are some businesses"

having run a charity that cost me money i can certainly say it wasn't though every one who we wanted grants off ( excluding children in need and comic relief ) wanted us to run more as a business, where as we were more concerned that the kids had a good time and safe place to learn and play.

what i would say is if you think a charity is making money for the people running it look at their accounts they are available if they are a charity

i saw a lot complaining about children in need and their reserves personally i would say they need bigger reserves than they currently have after a quick run through their accounts.

its easy to criticise but most of the people who do the hard work for charities do so at their own expense or for very little rumination.

if you can do better have a go and volunteer as someone who ran one for nearly ten years it is well worth it ( as long as the wife doesn't find how much you spent on it any way lol )

Re: Are charities a business?
 

This is always going to be a contentiuos subject.

Consider a local Hospice, run as a charity that must spend the majority of donations on running costs etc. Yes they do get a certain amount form Government but the rest must be raised locally.

That is just 1 example of 1 charity where wages and running costs are neccessarily where the money is spent.

Notwithstanding the above I do think a lot of the National charities are run as a business where it would appear more is spent on administration than on where it is supposed to go.

I only support local community charities now. That's money well spent.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Might be Irish but I agree with the sentiments

http://m.independent.ie/regionals/go...-34562033.html

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Public trust reaches an all time low. The reason, the media, not the foul little practices the media are reporting

http://fundraising.co.uk/2016/06/28/.../#.V3WGSXRwbqB

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Another example of the poxy rspca thinking they're above the law

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ermission.html

Re: Are charities a business?
 

"An RSPCA spokesman said: ‘The court ordered the RSPCA to provide information about the whereabouts of the two remaining cats. This is being done.’

Not good enough, they should be returned.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Returned alive if possible to please

Re: Are charities a business?
 

i am not a fan of the RSPCA ( should be spaying for free and not putting well animals down ) but in this case I think they may be get the wrong end of the stick.

the sister handed them over and the RSPCA is not a pet sitting service . Did the lady have a plan in place for her pets to be looked after if she was ill it doesnt seem so . We as a family have things in place for looking after our pets and those of other family members just as we have for our kids. With out that I would rather the RSPCA found a place for them rather than the possibility of them being in kennels for months If there was no Family or friends to do it.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Would you rather the rspca killed them if they couldn't find a place. Imo they're the worst charity around, there's only two I refused to work for out of all of them, rspca and rnib

Re: Are charities a business?
 

that is a loaded question but i will try my best to answer as i said i think they should be spaying animals for free ( they get a lot of money ) and i don't agree with putting healthy animals down ( wouldn't be as many if they spayed more ;) )

However I wouldn't want my animals kept at a kennels indefinitely either i have seen ones after a year they are not happy our last three cats from them were ones who had been in the longest at the center near us.

Also though we have spent thousands over all on our animals on operations for various conditions we only did so if the vet said it was likely to give them a good chance at a good recovery to be active and happy i wouldn't want them saved just because you could.

But as i said we have in place though family and friends who would look after ours and vice versa for family animals, If this lady was so worried she should have had this too which might have been her sister and it was her sister who asked the RSPCA to help. Which as i said is not a pet sitting service.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

WTF is this, how anyone thought this a good idea is beyond me


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...igators-snoop/

Re: Are charities a business?
 

And me too TD.:(

Re: Are charities a business?
 

It's the tip of a very rotten sector. Kelvin Mackenzie's column in my red top continues to expose charities for selling rip off deals to their donors on energy, insurance etc. whilst recieving bungs from big business for every rip off deal they sucker people into.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Is fining them a good idea, might be better to fine the actual people responsible rather than taking it from the funds people have donated, on the whole though anything than regulates them a tiny bit is to be welcomed imo

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...erence-service

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Unfortunately it's not going to cover all those endless through the letterbox plastic bags for clothing donations, that I'm pretty sure most aren't from legit charities.

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Free bin liners. What's there not to like? ;)

Re: Are charities a business?
 

Too much of the charity money goes to the top people's holidays etc, If you a raffle book for them, next time they send you two, then three, etc. they are never happy. No more for me I only give to Cancer research.