General Chat

Over the last few years I've donated quite a sum of money to an Australian Foundation that performs eye operations in remote areas both here and abroad (Fred Hollows Foundation)

Today two letters arrived from the Foundation, one for me and one for OH

Mine was the usual "Thank you for your past generosity and can you see (no pun intended) your way to bunging us another $50.00"

OH, who has never before received any correspondence from the Foundation, nor has made any donations, opened her letter which explained about the work done and also included a fridge magnet, note pad and several personalised address labels :-|

I'm still sulking!

That’s to encourage OH to make a regular donation, so don’t sulk but ask them where yours are. X.

Not playing anymore, I'm taking my ball home :-|

You mean you really really want a fridge magnet?? :-D :-D

My needs are simple, probably to match my mind :-P

Oh no AnninGlos he’s thrown all his toys out of the pram too.

We get an annual letter from the Foot and Mouth Painting charity with a few blank Christmas cards and a request for a donation.

We've never had any connection with them so I'm afraid it gets treated as unsolicited mail and junked.

In my own case it is solicited as it is for a charity that I can empathise with, my own eyesight not being that good and will probably require surgery soon.

In my wife's case the mail was unsolicited, but we'll keep the goodies.

My question is, how much of my donations has gone to the slick marketing and how much to the people in actual need?

We all expect fair play but not everyone agrees what fair play is. :-S

Allan, I also wonder about use of donations.

Daughters and I used to take part in an annual sponsored walk for charity and registered and paid a subscription online. On the day of the event, when we turned up, we were given a T shirt with the Charity logo and event printed on it. Not dated.
We could have quite a collection to wear now, because there was nowhere on the online form to state that we didn't want yet another identical T shirt.
We mentioned it each year at the check-in desk, but the message didn't seem to get through to the ordering office.
They could have saved so much money.

Another bugbear was being targeted with unwanted mail, when I bought Christmas draw tickets for a different charity. They must have used the details on the ticket stub to bombard me with requests for money. :-|

Trouble is they say for £2 a month it does this that and the other, then after a while they ask you to up the amount because £2 isn’t enough.

There is a site in Canada that we can access to see how much money donated to "a" charity actually goes to where it was intended. They show it as %age of a dollar.

They track hundreds of charities a year ................ which means delving into financial records etc.

It is eye opening to read how much of a dollar does NOT go to the intended place.

I looked at the site a couple of years ago, and it was rare to find any charity where less than 50% was used for support at home. That included paying executives and other permanent and temporary workers, advertising, etc etc. The majority were only sending 20-30% to the intended.

It was horrifying to see, for example, how little of each dollar went to cancer patients or cancer research by such major cancer charities as the Canadian Cancer Society, the (name of province) Cancer Society, BC Cancer Research Society, Diabetes Research, and basically you name it!!

Some of the worst were in fact some of the ones that attract those small donations.

I'm sure that other countries have similar web sites, if you Google.


This is why we now no longer donate to any of the groups we used to, even though we know how important the intended end result might be.

We now direct our donations to two groups at the university for the support of students, and we ensure that the donation goes to the actual group not to the university's Fund Raising group. This way all of the money goes to support a student or is used for the project that we want to support (eg, a horticulture student in a certain programme).

Another donation goes to the member-run scientific society that we belong to, and is again dedicated to support for student members of the society, eg contribution to travel costs for their research or to attend a conference..

We also make it very obvious to everyone that a) the donation is anonymous and is not to be included in any list passed on; and b) that any unsolicited call or release of information will result in no further donation from us.

As we are both cancer survivors and have lost relations and friends to cancer and heart problems, I sometimes feel bad for not supporting cancer research, heart society, the blind children in Africa, but until I can know that more than 60% (preferably even 90%) is going to cancer research, the children, etc, then I will not support high paid executives, luxury travel, etc.

I hate the wasted money too when they send cards or magnets or whatever, they're trying to guilt you into sending money. I also don't like the calls where they say can you afford our lowest amount of $100 or whatever it is...well quite frankly no $100 is a lot and I know most aren't giving that much!

Just as an aside, Telethon was held last weekend.

The following is an extract from Wiki regarding the Perth event

"Perth
The annual Channel Seven Perth Telethon is run by the Channel 7 Telethon Trust, out of Channel 7 Perth, Western Australia and broadcast statewide through TVW7 in Perth and GWN7. Most of the major media are involved in Telethon including W.A.'s two major newspapers The Sunday Times and The West Australian as well as radio stations Mix 94.5 and 6PR. The two major beneficiaries of Telethon have always been Princess Margaret Hospital for Children and the Telethon Kids Institute. However, each year there are numerous other beneficiaries (in 2016, there were 41 beneficiaries).

During the weekend of October 20 and 21, 2017, Channel 7 celebrated its 50th Telethon in Perth, raising a record A$36.4 million ($10m more than the previous year), which amounts to $13.94 per head of population in WA. This makes Perth's Telethon the highest fundraising Telethon (per capita) in the world. Since 1968, Perth's telethon has raised over A$A$268.4 million (to the end of 2017). The annual 26 hour continuous broadcast runs on a weekend, usually in October commencing at 6.30pm Saturday until 8.30pm Sunday.

A number of international celebrities have visited Perth to appear on the Telethon, such as Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Harry Connick, Jr., Stevie Wonder, Phyllis Diller, Bea Arthur, Sammy Davis Jr., Tina Turner, Julian Lennon, Whitney Houston, Def Leppard, Elton John (who performed live from the opening night of Perth Arena in 2012) and Hugh Jackman. A number of Australian television personalities and actors also fly across the country for the weekend including stars from programmes such as Sunrise, The Morning Show, 800 Words, Home and Away, The Chase Australia, House Rules and My Kitchen Rules"

This year, despite all the restrictions on International and national travel which meant the big name personalities could not attend, over $46 million was raised.

All of that does go to the nominated organisations.

Allan .................

the same happens here with annual Provincial telethons, with the same level of celebrities appearing. All the costs are covered by the station(s) involved and all the money goes to the nominated organizations.

Our local newspaper has had a year-round charity for many years that provides money to schools around the province so they can provide breakfast and lunch to children arriving without any, but also "backpacks" to take home at the weekend to help feed the family, plus clothing for kids who arrive in ragged clothes, or without winter clothes and boots. Some of the schools also run some sort of food programme(s) during the school holidays. All the costs of this are covered by the newspaper, every penny goes to the children.

Unfortunately, it seems to be some of the biggest and most demanding organizations that send the least money to those they claim to be helping.

It may surprise anyone who looks into some of them, even places like Oxfam!

We have a "society" here called Value Village, donate unwanted clothes etc etc (just like your charity shops) and they also seem to buy end of season over-runs from clothing manufacturers or whoever. It advertises as "the" place to go to buy your Hallowe'en costume as they have the largest collection, for example. Then they donate to various needy organizations.

Sounds good??

I refuse to go near them after a neighbour (now dead) told me that her daughter was involved as one of the founders (true), and "how well she and her husband were doing, the house they had bought". etc. My impression did not improve some years later when the daughter's husband was accused of taking much extra money in his position as leader of a nation-wide trades union!

That store, now a chain, is still in operation, and my daughter buys some clothes from a branch near where they live as it seems to carry quite a lot of good business clothes that have been donated, despite the fact that she knows how I feel about them!!

The reason I never donate to charity is that I always think so much of it goes to a big, fat wage for some executive. So often, if you ask a charity collector what percentage goes to the actual charity they don't know (or they say they don't)
The second reason is that if you sign up to pay a monthly amount most charities sell your details to other charities (to gain more funds) so you end up bombarded with charity requests.
Sadly it means I don't give charities any financial aid but I do donate clothes etc to Air Ambulance.

I'd never sign up for a monthly or annual type of donation.

On occasions, when I have been approached and ask to sign up for such a donation I have been amazed that when I've replied "No, but I will make a one-off payment" I've virtually been told not to bother as they weren't interested.

I'll stick with what I know .

I do make donations to my Lodge's charity fund as at least that all goes to the right places :-D

We have Guide dogs for the blind down the road from us and it’s massive, there are security guards, and a landscape gardener and goodness how many other staff, it has or had tennis courts and swimming pool yet we have never seen a guide dog. That is why I don’t directly donate to any charity but I do go to the shops because I at least get something for my money.

Many years ago, in the 1990s one of my rellies, who then held a senior post in the oldest charity in one of our big cities, told me about this problem and spoke about charity hoppers - people who hopped from top jobs in one charity to another, - how many had gold cards and travelled first class etc. all sorts of things my rellie was not happy about.

I stopped donating and decided to support a local charity by saving and buying a variety of toys, warm hats, mittens, gloves, even warm padded babysuits and taking them into the local office at the beginning of December every year. My daughter joined in, although as well as doing this, she has always had money deducted from her salary every month to support medical research since she started work.

Also, while I was working, once we found out that some of the tin-rattlers were being paid, most of my colleagues stopped popping cash in. The only tins I now pop cash in are the poppy ones because in our area the collectors are older people and children's groups such as scouts etc who pack groceries for you at this time of year.

Sylvia, many years ago when my OH and I landed in Vancouver there was an elderly Poppy Lady collecting at the airport. Naturally, I poppd cash in her tin and we got chatting. She asked where we lived and, when I told her, she responded with 'You're one of us.'

I only ever had that response once before - from a 20+ year-old in Australia.

Some people have the knack of making you feel at home wherever you are. <3

Allan, zzz and JoyLouise I agree with all of you. It's disgusting that the Guide dogs have all those amenities , probably paid for from donations. It's bad that such goings on deter people from donating, but it happens and it's a shame.