What will you do in 2014 to help children beat cancer?

[Worthy4England]

I agree. As far as I can tell, as an organization they donated £57k last year based on an income of £277k. That seems like a lot of overhead not going to charity (80%)

OK. Let's look at this another way. Let's say that someone owns a local company. At the end of the year his company makes a profit of £57k on a turnover of £277k. He decides to give every penny of his £57k profit away to children fighting cancer.

Yeah, let's forget his charitable donation or where it's gone to, let's stick the boot in instead for him not actually contributing enough due to the size of his overhead. Really? I mean - fecking really?

Yes, really. The two scenarios are not the same. In one, someone has a business doing something else, no one's paid him to raise the £57k, he has a surplus and decides it's going to charity - well done that man. Amount donated to charity £57k. Amount received by charity £57k. This is different. In goes a quid and out to charity pops 20p.

So for my £150 to do a moonwalk or whatever, circa £120 of it on that percentage isn't helping any fooker. Whereas some folks might believe it is.

I'd rather give my £150 direct thanks.

Yes. Really.

You may well do. But you're not representative of everyone. No really - you're not!

If someone offers a service / range of activities that raises £57k for kids with cancer by giving willing participants the chance to race round Oulton Park or whatever you don't find it worthwhile? Really?

Maybe our contributor should just come on here and beg for money straight out instead so as to avoid rebukes from the dwellers of the high ground as, of course, you'll all be too busy writing out cheques instead.

I didn't suggest I was representative of anyone.

And stop saying "really". It makes you sound like you're down with the yoof.

I'm sure we all have our own ways of donating to charity Brucie.

[Prufrock]

I agree. As far as I can tell, as an organization they donated £57k last year based on an income of £277k. That seems like a lot of overhead not going to charity (80%)

OK. Let's look at this another way. Let's say that someone owns a local company. At the end of the year his company makes a profit of £57k on a turnover of £277k. He decides to give every penny of his £57k profit away to children fighting cancer.

Yeah, let's forget his charitable donation or where it's gone to, let's stick the boot in instead for him not actually contributing enough due to the size of his overhead. Really? I mean - fecking really?

Yes, really. The two scenarios are not the same. In one, someone has a business doing something else, no one's paid him to raise the £57k, he has a surplus and decides it's going to charity - well done that man. Amount donated to charity £57k. Amount received by charity £57k. This is different. In goes a quid and out to charity pops 20p.

So for my £150 to do a moonwalk or whatever, circa £120 of it on that percentage isn't helping any fooker. Whereas some folks might believe it is.

I'd rather give my £150 direct thanks.

Yes. Really.

Le this ^.

I don't think anyone expects them to be able to spend 100% of it on the actual cause, of course big organisations will have overheads and so if it means they are able to help more people eventually then you suck it up and deal with that. I'm not sure I could set an exact figure at which I'd be comfortable, but DE's 80% doesn't leave me in spluttering fury.

57 out of 277! That's barely 20%! I was taking the piss when I said £1 in every 6.

That's an absolute disgrace.

[Bruce Rioja]

I'm sure we all have our own ways of donating to charity Brucie.

Well, I know I do. Really.

[Prufrock]

You know what I do? I donate a tenner, and then set forty on fire.

[KeyserSoze]

If people want to dig in then just go on the charity commission website and browse through the accounts (you can search for them). If you actually care, rather than want to boot some poor lad trying to fundraise who has had permission, then compare it's expenditure to charities of a similar size to it.

Did some work at Third Sector mag back in the day and was quite weirded out by how charities work. It was something ambiguous a while back and something which should probably be made clearer. Would help out everyone I think. Shouldn't be a case of thinking more admin = bad charity though. More effective and directed aid better than wasted cash mountains, aye.

[Bruce Rioja]

You know what I do? I donate a tenner, and then set forty on fire.

Yeah. That's how it works. Well observed.

[Gooner Girl]

So will there be pictorial evidence of you doing your shark dive Brucey?

[Prufrock]

You know what I do? I donate a tenner, and then set forty on fire.

Yeah. That's how it works. Well observed.

It's more like that than a business giving money away!

It'd be exactly like a business which makes 57k profit on 277k turnover giving that profit to charity - as long as it was a business that made its money selling shark dives to people, and, those shark dives were being paid for by their friends, who thought they were donating money to charity.

[Prufrock]

Also, I don't think people have been kicking the guy. Everyone accepts, I think, that he's trying to raise money. People are entitled to question how any money they're being asked to donate or raise would be spent.

I'm also aware that he hasn't had a chance to respond to any of this in a good while and that I might be reading the accounts wrong (though Worthy is usually pretty good at this stuff), so, more coolly:

It looks to me that their accounts (http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/Ac ... 31_E_C.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) divide their income into two separate sections:

There is standard voluntary donations on which they generated about 100k on 47k spend.

There is 'fundraising' which generated 176k on 167k.

Am I right in reading that as meaning these 95% of money donated to these 'events' goes on covering costs?

Coz that's bollocks.

I also searched for another charity which dealt with children and cancer and found the Children's Cancer Fund which in 2010 had an income of 277k also. I picked that year and that charity solely because it was so strikingly similar and at least in the same area so it may be a freak year, accountancy practices may have changed etc, but they spent 164k out of 277k on 'charitable activities'.

[Worthy4England]

I think you've read it right, but happy to be corrected.

Like you, I'm not knocking people raising money for a wonderful charity cause. Helping children beat cancer is a worthy ideal. I read it the same way you are reading it. It looks like an improvement on the previous year, when £22k was donated out of nearly £200k raised.

The staff costs were £118k that year. Charities only have to declare any single salaries over £60k so theoretically, someone could be getting a £59,999 salary for handling a £200k turnover business which gave £22k to charity. Whilst that's unlikely, given the organization had 5 employees, I'd be gutted to find that out.

That really wouldn't fit with my concept of "Charity".

[jaffka]

I think you've read it right, but happy to be corrected.

Like you, I'm not knocking people raising money for a wonderful charity cause. Helping children beat cancer is a worthy ideal. I read it the same way you are reading it. It looks like an improvement on the previous year, when £22k was donated out of nearly £200k raised.

The staff costs were £118k that year. Charities only have to declare any single salaries over £60k so theoretically, someone could be getting a £59,999 salary for handling a £200k turnover business which gave £22k to charity. Whilst that's unlikely, given the organization had 5 employees, I'd be gutted to find that out.

That really wouldn't fit with my concept of "Charity".

The staff wages being split 5 ways is £23.6k.

22K donated to charity.

Something isn't right here.

[Bruce Rioja]

You know what I do? I donate a tenner, and then set forty on fire.

Yeah. That's how it works. Well observed.

It's more like that than a business giving money away!

It'd be exactly like a business which makes 57k profit on 277k turnover giving that profit to charity - as long as it was a business that made its money selling shark dives to people, and, those shark dives were being paid for by their friends, who thought they were donating money to charity.

And it still harks back to - If you fancy getting involved then do, and if you don't, don't. The business model is there and plain for all to see, yet you and others make out that there's some kind of subterfuge going on.

[Bruce Rioja]

So will there be pictorial evidence of you doing your shark dive Brucey?

Only for you.

[Bruce Rioja]

Like you, I'm not knocking people raising money for a wonderful charity cause.

No - it doesn't sound like you are either!!

[Prufrock]

You know what I do? I donate a tenner, and then set forty on fire.

Yeah. That's how it works. Well observed.

It's more like that than a business giving money away!

It'd be exactly like a business which makes 57k profit on 277k turnover giving that profit to charity - as long as it was a business that made its money selling shark dives to people, and, those shark dives were being paid for by their friends, who thought they were donating money to charity.

And it still harks back to - If you fancy getting involved then do, and if you don't, don't. The business model is there and plain for all to see, yet you and others make out that there's some kind of subterfuge going on.

The only reason it's plain to see is because the people 'on white chargers' have well, been charging about. Unless your suggesting when he first posted it was clear that 95% of what you donated wasn't going on curing kids of cancer?

The only other thing I can think you're saying is that people ought to be expected to do due dilligence on every charity they think of giving to before assuming that their money is actually going to charity, research, the charity commission website etc.

If that were the case I'd have expected to see you posting on the PPI thread about how it was plain for all to see if they'd just done a little research. Oddly not.

[Worthy4England]

Like you, I'm not knocking people raising money for a wonderful charity cause.

No - it doesn't sound like you are either!!

Just pointing out that the money you're donating, only a small percentage seems to make it to the actual charity. Whilst any contribution is welcome to charity, I'd expect better than 11% (last year) or 20% this.

That's not knocking it, it's highlighting that their might be better bets if you want more of your pound to get to the actual charity.

My general understanding of charity is something given to a good cause, rather than to pay someone a wage to raise it for a good cause. The reality is, we seem to have a charity industry nowadays, so I'm always curious when I put my bit in the tin, whether 80% of it is going to the person rattling the tin.

You've done a lot of what ifs the last couple of pages, so let me what if.

What if you give me £118k, and I promise I'll get £22.5k to a charity over the year?

Sounds like a deal, I'll send you my bank details.

[Bruce Rioja]

You know what I do? I donate a tenner, and then set forty on fire.

Yeah. That's how it works. Well observed.

It's more like that than a business giving money away!

It'd be exactly like a business which makes 57k profit on 277k turnover giving that profit to charity - as long as it was a business that made its money selling shark dives to people, and, those shark dives were being paid for by their friends, who thought they were donating money to charity.

And it still harks back to - If you fancy getting involved then do, and if you don't, don't. The business model is there and plain for all to see, yet you and others make out that there's some kind of subterfuge going on.

The only reason it's plain to see is because the people 'on white chargers' have well, been charging about. Unless your suggesting when he first posted it was clear that 95% of what you donated wasn't going on curing kids of cancer?

The only other thing I can think you're saying is that people ought to be expected to do due dilligence on every charity they think of giving to before assuming that their money is actually going to charity, research, the charity commission website etc.

If that were the case I'd have expected to see you posting on the PPI thread about how it was plain for all to see if they'd just done a little research. Oddly not.

Well, it's plain to see to some of us that aren't on white chargers because yes, we do carry out due dilligence when it comes to making charitable donations. Then, and get this, we decide whether we want to get involved or not - is that difficult for you to see? Your PPI comment is utterly irrelevant - stop clutching at straws.

FFS I'm getting sick of this. If people on here cannot grasp the simple difference between making a charitable donation and buying into something from which the profit goes to charity then frankly I have better things to do than to try to explain it. As mentioned before, I recently cancelled a DD because I wasn't happy with how little of it was going to the intended cause. People aren't comparing like with like here.

[Prufrock]

You do due diligence on your donations to charity but not on insurance potentially costing thousands on financial products?

People are entitled to assume that they 'need' insurance they are told they need. People are entitled to assume that money they give to charity is going to...charity.

Aaand, even if they were to be expected to do their own research, what better way than by asking the guy from the charity himself?!

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

This is a bizarre discussion. Most of this thread was people asking him civilized, curious questions and him giving civilized, thoughtful answers.

I hate 'look at me' fundraising but I understand that this poster is doing his/her best and playing the only game that's available, with admirably tenacity and politeness.

[Bruce Rioja]

You do due diligence on your donations to charity but not on insurance potentially costing thousands on financial products?

The difference being going into one with ones eyes open and being duped into the other. That is why your comparison couldn't be wider of the mark than if you tried your best to as wide of the mark as is possible.