Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 41 total)
  • Charities
  • hooli
    Full Member

    So there was some information on cancer research in the selfies thread, what is the general opinion on charities and how they are run?

    I personally feel there are too many charities covering the same thing with each charity having their own overheads, staffing and management. Joining forces would be a far better way of spending the money raised.

    Some interesting reading here:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/10225883/How-much-charities-spend-on-charitable-activities.html

    In my opinion, a charity like age UK that uses less than 50% of money on charitable activities should be shut down.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    But who is to decide how those charities are to be joined? They’re private, not state-run, so many would see state interference in how charities operate to be going too far.
    There are very large amounts of money raised, and it must be said that wages for directors, staff, etc, and prize money, are paid for from profits made from investments in shares, there have been some headlines concerning some shares considered to be less than ethical, where the charities are concerned.
    Some charities like the RNLI really have to be charitable, the thought of Lifeboats being under the control of some government quango fills me with horror, the same with air ambulances; Wiltshire AA has lost the police chopper it shared, due to the government taking Wiltshire’s chopper away, and having one shared among several forces, so the WAA has to find £200,000/year just to run the bird. Should all Air Ambulances come under one charity that funds every one? I can’t see how that would work; people have a real affection for their own local AA, and will happily cough up to support it, I doubt people would give so readily to a single blanket organisation that seems disconnected from their locality.
    I can see it being appropriate in some places, though, RNIB and Action for Blind People are both part of the same overall charity, which I can’t quite understand.
    I work for a company that is a one-stop shop for charities, printing the tickets, mailing them, receiving back all the tickets and money, banking and doing the draw, and notifying winners, so I get to see how things are run from the inside, as it were, but I’m not going to elaborate, for obvious reasons.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    But who is to decide how those charities are to be joined?

    no need to decide. Just make the tax allowance for charities conditional on a desired efficiency model. i.e. tax exemption goes from 0% to 100% depending on ratios such as Executive pay to Gross revenue (donations), or gross revenue to non-administrative expense for example. It would have the effect of encouraging organisations to merge or demerge to maximise their tax savings.

    I tend not to support the larger, bloated charities, but prefer to contribute to local units that are not apron-tied to some central fund raising organisation like the RDA. I do also supporr the local Air Ambulance but that’s arguably not really a “charity”.

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    cinnamon_girl
    Full Member

    I think there are some dubious ones around that do need investigation.

    yourguitarhero
    Free Member

    The charity I work for doesn’t provide any direct services (such as food, money or care) to service users. Just lots of advice and guidance. Staff costs are about 80% of costs.
    All our income is grant funding. No donations.

    cranberry
    Free Member

    If all of the funding is provided by grants from the government then you are not a charity.

    redstripe
    Free Member

    I think the charity UK Youth is particularly good and well run with fantastic dedicated staff, and it even hosts the Big Bike Bash every August, with all profits being spent directly on facilities and activities for children and young people. I think they deserve a lot of support for the work they do and difference they make to the lives of thousands of young people etc etc

    yourguitarhero
    Free Member

    OP suggests a charity that spends less than 50% of income on charity (i.e. giving the money away to the needy) isn’t a ‘proper’ charity.

    OK, how much profit does a private company make? If they made £1 profit for every £1 spent they’d be a pretty sweet business. I’d buy shares.

    Understand that charities still have to pay a lot of costs – rent an office, buy computers, pay staff etc. There are small discounts and tax breaks but they don’t make up the difference. It costs a lot of money to run a charity…. and staff need paid!!!! I work for a charity and get paid less than I could earn in the private sector. But I can’t live on smugness and hubris alone, I gotta pay for food, rent and legal highs. Unless charities are dishing that shit out for charity workers?

    The premise of this thread is boneheaded. I’ll pre-empt the next stupid comment – why should a charity CEO get paid over £100k???????????????

    Well, because they are in charge of, and responsible, for a multi million £££ organisation. That takes a certain amount of skill and experience. Skills and experience they have and would be far better compensated for in the private sector. In general a charity CEO on £100k would get £166k in the private sector. Is giving away £66k a year not good enough? I read a poll the other day that said ‘44% of members of the public’ disagreed with charity CEOs being paid. At all.
    I mentioned this to my boss as a way to stop a bunch of other people in the organisation losing their jobs due to funding cuts – she could forgo her salary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Problem solved. However, it turned out she needed to like, pay bills, and her mortgage and buy food and stuff like that. ****, who knew? I wish Prince Charles was our CEO – he doesn’t need the cash

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    my general thoughts are that generalisations are bad.
    There are many smaller charities can focus on certain things and do them well, sometimes the bigger the organisation the less able people are to focus on specific details that make a big difference.
    There are economies of scale that the modern world has given us, things like mobile donations and online giving pages must help reduce costs. Offering up shared office space to charities might be another good way to make them more efficient shared HR/Org stuff and let the charity focus on more charity stuff, maybe business could get a tax break for providing at cost outsourcing to charities etc.

    On the CEO’s not getting paid, I remember a run in with a HR guy and a bloke in our office, we were all being made redundant, the HR guy wasn’t. He said he didn’t work for the money but the thought he was doing a good job and was appreciated. The response was if on payday he got a letter telling him he was awesome and no money would he be there next pay day?

    chewkw
    Free Member

    yourguitarhero – Member

    … In general a charity CEO

    Therein lies the problem.

    🙄

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    what would you call someone running an organisation of that size if they are not a CEO?

    hooli
    Full Member

    yourguitarhero – Member
    OP suggests a charity that spends less than 50% of income on charity (i.e. giving the money away to the needy) isn’t a ‘proper’ charity.

    Steady on, that wasn’t what I meant even by a long shot. And I agree that a good CEO is worth more than his/her salary so have no issue them being paid market rate. The big if is if they are worth it and prove this worth.

    My point was 2 things:

    1. If some charities manage to spend over 80% on charitable spending, how can another only spend 50%? Surely they are not running as efficiently as they could be and are in effect wasting (public)money? If the charity was a department in a public or private sector company, it would be viewed this way so why not if it is a charity?

    2. You mention rent, salaries, heating, tax etc. Would it not make sense to combine 3 or 4 of the smaller charities all dealing with the same aim into 1 larger more efficient charity? Economies of scale, shared costs etc. There is a charity comission already to manage who, how etc.

    I just think we all all becoming a bit immune to charity requests because of how many we see each day, something in the area needs to change in future.

    johndoh
    Free Member

    OK, how much profit does a private company make? If they made £1 profit for every £1 spent they’d be a pretty sweet business. I’d buy shares.

    But charities are *given* money, private businesses have to make things/offer services etc to generate income.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    But charities are *given* money, private businesses have to make things/offer services etc to generate income.

    Does that make their bills significantly cheaper, can they buy a computer for 50% less than someone else?

    johndoh
    Free Member

    No, the point is that they don’t have to buy buttons wholesale to sell buttons retail.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    So it would be fair to compare a charity to a service based industry such as aged care or private nursing then?

    willjones
    Free Member

    The ‘what percentage of your income do you spend on your programme’ is a false discourse, and too ambiguous a question. It should be ‘how effective are you in meeting your charitable aims’.

    johndoh
    Free Member

    mikewsmith – Member
    So it would be fair to compare a charity to a service based industry such as aged care or private nursing then?
    POSTED 17 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

    No because they don’t run series of High Street stores with massive overheads.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    So how would you propose to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of a charity?

    willjones
    Free Member

    “So how would you propose to measure the effectiveness and efficiency of a charity?”

    Surely that depends on the charity. It could be softer measures around patient and carer experience and reach. Others might be political change effected, or number of people getting out of debt etc. broad brush doesn’t work.

    piemonster
    Full Member

    But charities are *given* money, private businesses have to make things/offer services etc to generate income.

    Eh? Charities do offer services, what do you think they are actually doing?

    yourguitarhero
    Free Member

    Hooli –
    Some charities can use over 50% of income on charity – some can’t. Not all charities are the same – their reach, mission and clients all differ.
    There is a huge difference in overheads between selling cakes at the fete and landing trained people in a disaster area to sort out running water.

    Johndoh –
    Yes charities are given money. However their customers/clients don’t pay anything for their services.

    bigblackshed
    Full Member

    A few points further up the thread about charities such as the Air Ambulance and RNLI. These charities are plugging a hole that should be government funded. No question, no argument. It’s like saying the Fire Service or Ambulance Service should be funded by donations alone.

    I do agree that does seem to be an overlap of charities to causes, some of which might do a better job of providing what they do with a pooled resourced.

    I support the RDA, Riding for the Disabled, because they help my son. A service which I pay market value for. The central charity RDA offers an umbrella support network for the local centres. BUT all of the local centres are independent. They receive no funding from Central, they have to raise all of their funds themselves.

    It was also “discussed” at length about individuals doing activities for charity on the selfie thread. It does seem preposterous that people have to do something to raise money, most of the time paying to do an activity to raise sponsorship. But how many people would put their hand in their pocket if I asked for a donation? If I said I was jogging round a field in a pink shirt, some people will give generously. The adventure activities seem to be the worst. Raise £2k to climb Kilimanjaro, none of which goes to a charity, then raise sponsorship because you climbed Kilimanjaro!

    *I pointlessly jumped in the sea on New Years Day to raise some money for the RDA. Some of you guys donated generously, which I’m extremely grateful, and which I donated to also. The expenses I incurred to do it came out of my own pocket, which could be said “why didn’t you just give that to the RDA?” Well I raised a fair bit more than that, thank you. Would I have raise as much as I did if I’d have said, “Oi, give us some money!”

    yourguitarhero
    Free Member

    I agree with ^

    It’s sad that that is what is required to get people to donate. Some of these ‘charity’ sportives (such as Etape Caledonia) are quite misleading – none of the entry cost goes to charity.

    I’ve done a couple of these ‘challenges’ for charity before, but always paid all my own costs and it’s never been something I would have liked to do anyway (like go cycling).

    In fact, I’ve just been nominated to Facebook a picture of myself with a sock on my cock and nothing else…. kind of the more ‘ballsy’ male version of the no-make up selfies (which, tbh, I think are pretty lame).
    Hopefully people will donate enough to make me take the picture down

    CaptJon
    Free Member

    It is important to remember than some charities are local, some are national, and therefore there appears to be overlap. Often, however, the local charities are much more ‘hands on’ compared to national counterparts who do more on research and raising awareness.

    binners
    Full Member

    But charities are *given* money, private businesses have to make things/offer services etc to generate income.

    Remember this little wheeze:

    Well what it really means, when you dug through the claptrap, is that charities will now be expected to fill the gap left by the slash and burn of the welfare state. Mrs Binners works in the third sector so I know a thing or two about this. You’d be amazed at the unsung work charities do, in areas like disabled care, that everyone just assumes are state funded. They aren’t! They would provide the services local authorities either can’t or won’t provide.

    In return the local authorities would make significant donations to the running costs. Not any more. They have had their budgets slashed, so have slashed their funding to these charitable organisations accordingly. Mostly to zero. The government has washed their hands of large sections of society. It now wants these charitable organisations to take responsibility for services on a voluntary basis, while cutting all funding to them

    A lot of the services that you would expect in a civilised society, are now run through the goodwill and sacrifice of decent people (think the polar opposite of Dave and chums), going to ridiculous lengths to try and raise funds. Its now veered into total exploitation. Its criminal!!!

    But hey… something has to give if we want to fund tax cuts for their rich chums. And disabled people? Well… who gives a **** really?

    willjones
    Free Member

    But charities are *given* money,

    Technically that’s a bit true, we do get Gift Aid… *runs away and hides*

    mrmo
    Free Member

    what is charitable spending? Is lobbying MPs charitable spending, is giving food to old people charitable spending?

    If you work in an area where there are regulations to meet, how do you account for these, for the employees whose job it is to produce the paperwork?

    Nothing is ever clear cut.

    piemonster
    Full Member

    Nothing is ever clear cut.

    E.g. In the instance relevant to me, 57% of the total annual expenditure goes on a single machine and two operators.

    robdixon
    Free Member

    One thing a lot of the big charities need to do is actually spend more – it may have changed recently but some of the bigger charities have huge reserves, with the result that the volunteers who spend weekends in the rain collecting money are actually just adding to a cash pile that isn’t being spent… the RNLI were certainly in that camp with £135m in reserves at one point, and anyone who has seen the Salvation Army’s fancy HQ on opposite Tate Modern could easily be mistaken for believing the chop-house canteen and art collection on the walls was actually part of a hedge fund.

    edlong
    Free Member

    Her we go again…. Right, from the top:

    I personally feel there are too many charities covering the same thing with each charity having their own overheads, staffing and management. Joining forces would be a far better way of spending the money raised.

    Lots of charities do merge, it’s happening all the time. In the short term, it costs lots of money to do it, in the long term there should be efficiencies generated. Incidentally, having been one that went through it, Age UK might be at the “costing more” stage when those figures were produced (I don’t know, haven’t looked). However, there’s also lots of charities which, on the face of it “cover the same thing” but actually have different beneficiary groups, focusses etc – you have cancer charities that support people with cancer, and those that fund research, slamming them together might not actually generate efficiencies, you just risk losing specialism.

    The charity I work for (yes, personal interest in this debate disclosed) provides mental health support, and there are other charities locally who also provide mental health support. We specialise in particular “hard to reach” people, and we are trusted by people in that community as we are seen as being “for them” – as a branch of a big conglomerate of mental health supporting charities we would lose that, and lose what makes us successful at what we do.

    In my opinion, a charity like age UK that uses less than 50% of money on charitable activities should be shut down.

    Fortunately, those who are in the position of making those decisions look at things in more depth. The Charity Commission can, and does, remove charities from the register (effectively stopping them operating as charities). Not spending their money on their beneficiaries is one reason when it is not for a good reason.

    no need to decide. Just make the tax allowance for charities conditional on a desired efficiency model. i.e. tax exemption goes from 0% to 100% depending on ratios such as Executive pay to Gross revenue (donations), or gross revenue to non-administrative expense for example. It would have the effect of encouraging organisations to merge or demerge to maximise their tax savings.

    There are many measures that charities, and those that fund them, use to measure efficiency. Neither of those are ones I’ve come across, perhaps because they are crude and not much use across charities that work in very different ways, some providing grants, some providing services, some providing advocacy for example. Trust me, this is not a sector that is awash with money of late, we do rather focus on efficiency already…

    I think there are some dubious ones around that do need investigation.

    Yep. Unfortunately the Charity Commission has had its own funding massively cut by the present government, but they still do work quite hard on this. If you look on their website, you can read the investigation reports and the decisions reached. If you know of any specific ones that concern you, I would urge you to contact the Charity Commission with your concerns.

    If all of the funding is provided by grants from the government then you are not a charity.

    The post this replied to said “grants” not “grants from the government” so that’s a big assumption – there’s hundreds of grant giving organisations (trusts etc.) outside the government, as well as quasi-governmental ones like Big Lottery. The definition thing is interesting though – the word charity means different things to different people, hence people talking about the third sector, and “not-for-profits”, “social enterprise” etc.

    Understand that charities still have to pay a lot of costs – rent an office, buy computers, pay staff etc.

    This.

    1. If some charities manage to spend over 80% on charitable spending, how can another only spend 50%? Surely they are not running as efficiently as they could be and are in effect wasting (public)money?

    Perhaps they work differently. Perhaps they are raising lots of money in a long term fundraising drive for a project that will be delivered in five years time. Think about the local church with it’s long term fundraising drive to fix the roof, complete with thermometer-style totaliser out the front. They need £20K to do the job. Maybe it will take them ten years to raise the money. In years 1-9 by your reckoning they are inefficient as they’ve raised £2K each year and just sat on it in the bank, still racking up admin costs (bank charges etc.). In year 10 they spent five times as much as they’ve raised, so suddenly they’re the most efficient organisation ever? In summary, you’re talking bobbins.

    2. You mention rent, salaries, heating, tax etc. Would it not make sense to combine 3 or 4 of the smaller charities all dealing with the same aim into 1 larger more efficient charity? Economies of scale, shared costs etc. There is a charity comission already to manage who, how etc.

    Dealing with the same aim does not mean doing the same thing.

    It is important to remember than some charities are local, some are national, and therefore there appears to be overlap. Often, however, the local charities are much more ‘hands on’ compared to national counterparts who do more on research and raising awareness.

    Or even, do both. look at Mind (the mental health people) – nationally, they do campaigning type stuff, local Minds (independently constituted) provide services to local people suffering from mental health problems. There are also synergies leveraged to gain efficiency through buying power, some shared back-office service functions etc, but they still manage to keep the local services rooted in the communities they serve (I don’t work for Mind).

    If you work in an area where there are regulations to meet, how do you account for these, for the employees whose job it is to produce the paperwork?

    This. Take mental health for example. You won’t be surprised to learn that, working with vulnerable people (children or adults) there’s some stuff you have to do. DBS (criminal records) checks on staff and volunteers – costs money. Compliance with local safeguarding protocols, compliance with funders requirements, compulsory training and professional registrations, on top of the stuff all organisations have to do (data protection compliance), it all costs money. People are appalled that charities have administrative expenses, but I reckon they’d be more appalled if the worker going into the home of their vulnerable relative hadn’t had any training, or been checked out for a criminal record, or they thought that the records being kept on the charity’s computers wasn’t kept safe and secure. This stuff doesn’t happen by magic.

    some of the bigger charities have huge reserves, with the result that the volunteers who spend weekends in the rain collecting money are actually just adding to a cash pile that isn’t being spent

    various reasons why charities hold reserves – see my earlier example of the church roof for example. Another one is the obligation to pay redundancy to staff. Not an imaginary one that: lots and lots of charities have had lots and lots of funding cut in the last few years and had to close services. Paying redundancy to staff when that happens isn’t optional, and if you haven’t got the funds for it, your whole charity goes belly up. Trustees have to explain their reserves policy in their annual report – if you’re concerned, go read it, they’re easy to get hold of.

    ibnchris
    Full Member

    I’m not going to say who I work for because it’ll open up even more discussion on the rights and wrongs of charitable giving. But I’d suggest some of you might be interested in watching this Dan Pallotta’s TED talk on charities

    Incidentally for those who think charities are just ‘given’ money. Can you let me know how people would know who to give their money too if people didn;t marlet themselves in some way? And how would you propose they get the money to the people that need it? All volunteers I guess. Genius.

    willjones
    Free Member

    Ah! Other charity people! *waves*

    piemonster
    Full Member

    *waves back*

    leffeboy
    Full Member

    If some charities manage to spend over 80% on charitable spending, how can another only spend 50%

    you have to be extremely careful with these numbers. I know of one very expensive top heavy ‘charity’ where all they do is take money and pass it on to other non profits and claim their overhead is only 10%. Yes it is but that 10% is off the top and does very little

    in the end you have to not focus on the numbers but rather the end results. Numbers can hide an awful lot

    *waves back*

    rene59
    Free Member

    Is a company that has “charitable status” the same thing as a company that is a “charity”?

    Sometimes I see one or the other in company literature etc but never known the difference.

    oldboy
    Free Member

    I wouldn’t give a penny to any of them!

    scuzz
    Free Member

    I like helping people

    yourguitarhero
    Free Member

    Old boy… and yet they’d still help you if you were ill or so unfortunate you couldn’t wipe your own arse.

    I’m actually in the process of setting up a small charity helping the homeless. Guess what? A lot of them are assholes whom I don’t like. I’ll still help them though. I’d even help you.

    CountZero
    Full Member

    Some fascinating, and educational points made, in particular edlong, thank you for that.
    I totally agree that Air Ambulances should receive state funding, but I sometimes feel that it’s considered an indulgence having one paraffin parrot flitting about that costs £200,000/year to run; just think how many ambulances/paramedics that would pay for!
    However, in Wiltshire, for example, a large county with huge areas of open countryside, often with few major roads, and the only A&E hospitals in Bath, Bristol or Swindon, the fact that the chopper can get anywhere in the county in six minutes makes a huge difference.
    I believe that the RNLI do not want any state funding, they don’t want civil servants or ministers interfering when they know sod-all about the subject; See Environment Agency…
    Another area where significant sums need to be spent, and that’s the area my employer is in, and that’s Response Handling. Having a building holding three large Heidelberg print machines, along with the personnel to run them, often twelve hours a day, five days a week, costs money. As do the materials. Then there are the people like me, who single-handedly sorts many thousands of letters that arrive each day, and also makes the printing plates, sometimes runs a folding machine, and keeps data-bases up to date by scanning in the returned ‘gone away’ mail, the studio guys who spend hours creating all the artwork, the IT people who handle all the customer databases, the girls who open the mail, check payments, tickets, cash, etc, the girls who handle all the banking and financial stuff, account managers who have to deal with all the client charities, warehouse staff, enclosing machine staff…
    It all adds up, and some charities can, and do, deal with their own returned mail, banking and draw; RNLI and Guide Dogs do.
    Most can’t, you wouldn’t believe how much space the returned ticket stubs for a major campaign take up!
    This must be paid for.
    Wiltshire AA seem to be managing on their own, with volunteer fundraisers; they need £200,000 for the new chopper’s running costs, and have apparently managed to get £197,000, with the new bird coming in the Autumn, so it’s do-able for a small outfit to do.
    I really feel that some cost-matching from local or central government should be available, but in the absence of that, what we have is the best we can hope for.
    Even Sustrans struggles, there’s only so much they can raise, but they do get some fund-matching from environmental monies, like the local recycling people, and councils, from local transport funds.

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