Charidee

[mistergixer]

Thanks BCF for 'warping' my ideas and standpoint concerning major charities.

I was asked by a FB friend to contribute to a charidee cycle ride which hoped to raise £5K for Friends of the Earth.

Whilst I think their endeavour to be admirable (cycling 1200 miles is certainly very challenging) as a well-trained BCFer, I instantly looked at FOE's accounts and discovered that over 50% of their 'contributions' would go towards paying the salaries of the charidee workers.

Having raised my concerns, I have now been labelled as a 'troll', 'negative' and a 'wanker' who has 'taken a shit on a charity bike ride'.

Strangely, those who are most verbally abusive are those who profess to work for various charities - almost as if they're a little on the defensive side about being called out over the whole sordid affair.



Charidee - a good business to be in.


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Don Eladio is dead. His capos are dead. You have no one left to fight for. Fill your pockets and leave in peace. Or fight me and die!
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[BTTD]

Good work. I hate commercial charities.

They turn good deeds into a business model and marketing.

[MarJay]

[oldpink]

f*** them
good for you for standing your ground
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[tbourner]

[fatpies]

The temptation to change to a fake one is enormous though, put a dump truck full of money in front of somebody and principles fade away.


Myself I did some charity work when business was slow. It was teaching GCSE maths and English to people for whatever reason did not finish school. Mixture of ex prisoners, homeless, people who'd come from abusive homes.

Classes were free, we were paid coffee and biscuits. Robert had formerly been a city trader but burnt out and had health problems. There were quite a few success stories and photos of people holding their GCSE certs and me lurking in the back. The published the accounts and everything was spent on paying the council where we were located in a basement.

He passed away and it went over to a bloke called Mark. He ran it the same. They ran out of money. They they got lottery funding and a nasty woman called Karen stepped in. Accounts ceased to be openly published. A lot of paid staff suddenly turned up and Karen started turning up in a new BMW.

The students were charged more than the local college to attend classes, the volunteers were told they had to pay a £1000 'admin' fee to continue volunteering.

They no longer have any students, just a load of staff who get paid for doing nothing.
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[tbourner]

[fatpies]

[Tracey Suntan-King]

Absolutely in agreement with you Mr Gixer. I worked in the charity world and reluctantly became a whistle-blower because of bad, borderline, immoral (not in a good way) conduct of those in charge.

Don't be fooled by the fact there is the Charity Commission - even when shown clear evidence of practice that would lead to directors' disqualification and likely fraud charges in the business world, they do f*ck all. A toothless watchdog. Worse then no use at all.

I no longer work for or donate to charities with the exception of local Air Ambulance or hospices.

For the sake of my soul I am now a part-time commodities trader and LIBOR fixer. Oh yes and I club baby seals on my holidays.

X
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[UnknownStuntm...]

I maintain that the only way to do a charity event thing is buy your own kit, organise your own transport and accommodation, get the cheapest fund-raising method possible ( think the BT mydonate pages are the best for this ) and be transparent. Tell people that every quid they give will be going to the charity.

I'm doing one at the moment, I've never done one before, never asked to be sponsored for anything - and people are much more willing to do it when you tell them you've sorted everything yourself.

[MCW]

I don't think it's as simple as declaring all big charities corrupt. I agree with what you are saying, but at the same time, there must be a way of running a charity so that those involved full time can make a living and those who give to it feel that their money is being well spent. I don't condone it, but if only 50% of the donation gets to the end user, it's 100% more money than they would be getting if the charity wasn't there and there were no alternative model.

I stopped giving to charity when I signed up to one of those £2.00 a month promises, and then had the life pestered out of me to up the payments. I do give my time as much as I can though. Work in logistics at Crisis at Christmas over the (surprise!) Christmas holidays.

If a friend asks for sponsorship, I will bung them a fiver though, unless it's something that really goes against the grain.

[fatjames]

Does anyone know of anyone who has benefited from charity? I don't mean the ones running the companies or people on dole benefits or people who buy cheap plates from the cats protection league. I mean really, been sorted out by money raised?

I read the nadb newsletter and about bike mods they've done for people. Things to keep disabled rider's on their bikes. Seems like a great charity, so I pay an annual subscription. Bit of an Indian giver though, as I feel they might be able to help me out in the future.

[Rogerborg]

[MCW]

[UnknownStuntm...]

[tbourner]

[oldpink]

[fatjames]

That's good to hear that good comes out of it. I suppose we just have be sure we're giving money to the right people.

[The Shaggy D.A.]

I prefer to keep my donations as local and direct as possible - the home my mother lived in, the home my aunt lived in, the nurse who gave up her own time to accompany me in the ambulance when I was transferred from Northampton General to the head injuries specialists in Oxford. Stuff like that.
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[yaigi]

[Rogerborg]

The Erskine hospice helped my grandad end his days with dignity and respect. They get my money.
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[Skudd]

[Wave2k]

Heard it all before, and you are right Charity is a business and its a business that appears to be booming.

One of my step dads clients runs a pretty big charity full time, you should see how he lives and where.

Un-fucking-be-leavable

Cunts
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[metalangel]

I worked for a national charity in an administrative role. We made promotional materials using a style guide, as requested by various regional managers. I was also given the job of doing all the travel bookings for these managers, with a budget of £65 a night for accommodation and to keep car rental/flights/train fares as low as possible. We also had a special day where we went to one of the projects (a store run by volunteers) and had a day working the till. The volunteers worked very hard, and reused as much as they could to keep the costs of running the place down.

Eventually I got promoted to be an IT trainer, working on-site at one of the projects in Bradford which was implementing a new computer system for tracking the various elderly people getting meals delivered. I finally got to see the charity's head office, which was a vast stately home surrounded by acres and acres of lush green land. I was given a brand new car, a phone and a laptop. Once I had been trained on the system (which took two weeks) I was working at the site five days a week.

I was subject to the same conditions as the managers I'd made bookings for in the past: the same budget for a hotel, and £15 a night meal allowance. All my fuel was paid for. I began to see how higher ups weren't given a crappy Peugeot but could choose whatever they wanted. Many of the managers who came to visit the project were rather large due to taking full advantage of their meal allowance.

The kicker came when I finally left the job. My supervisor met with me and asked why I wasn't using my full £15 a night. I had been getting stuff from Morrison's like the freshly baked meat pies, or a microwave curry, and eating that. Nice and cheap, save money. My supervisor said that he didn't need the itemized receipts, just the one with the VAT number and amount. I told him I still didn't understand, so he said: "Listen, I don't care if you have a bottle of whisky for dinner."

That's the modern face of charity. New cars, new equipment, expense claims up the wazoo. Corporate style mission statements and perks because, in the words of the charities, they need to attract the best businesspeople they can to run the business as well as they can, and those sort of people expect those perks.
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[chris-red]

I don't know the ins and outs of their financial dealings but I like the RNIB.

My Grandad is blind and hard of hearing. For someone who is so shut off to the world he is fantastically cheery. I put a lot of this down to the fact the RNIB, completely free of charge have given him a audio book player (glorified MP3 CD player) that has big buttons. On top of that he has a Love film' esc subscription in which they send him audio books to listen to. He rings up a number and asks for certain books or asks for suggestions and the staff always provide him with them.
All this is free.

They are who I will raise money for next time.
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