charity donations for christmas

both me and mrs ex-p tend to just buy what we like when we need it, so it seems a waste buying things we dont particularly need as presents for christmas.  same when family ask us what we want, we just tell them we dont need anything yet we’ll still end up with the usual fare.  i dont want to seem ungrateful, but we feel the money could be spent on better causes, so we’d like to give to charity instead, and direct family to do the same if they insist on spending money on us.

but…… who to?  salvation army?  shelter?  cancer research?  macmillans?  food kitchens?  something we havent thought of?  ideally we’d like any money given to go directly to those that need it rather than be partly swallowed up in charity admin costs, but dont really know the logistics of different charities.

looking for ideas, so, who/what worthy causes do you all tend to give to at christmas?

cheers

A few local charities mostly. In particular, a drug and alcohol charity, a homeless charity, a women’s refuge, and the local food bank.

I donate to a small school in Nepal -= partly ‘cos every penny goes to the kids and partly because the amount of money I have to give actually makes a difference.  £60 to educate one child for a year.

At winter solstice food and water charities seem appropriate as well to me – so wateraid and local food banks / feed the homeless projects

I’ve asked for donations to Crisis’ Christmas campaign – being homeless and lonely is especially awful at Christmas time: https://www.crisis.org.uk/

Find something local if you can, small amounts of money often go further

Also don’t discount paying something towards charity admin.  The folks I work for get about 4x the funds from various government funds as from private but we need those private funds to pay the salaries of the people writing the proposals.  Think of it as your money going further

We normally give some money to the Sally Army and there’s usually a secret santa thing at work for kids that would otherwise not get any pressies.

winter solstice

Come on Teej, I don’t think you’re fatally betraying your atheism by calling it Christmas…

Its winter solstice to me 🙂

I support, volunteer and am a trustee for a local crisis support foodbank.

I tend to support local charities and good causes rather than nationals.

I’ve generally given to bigger charities in the past. This year, there was a big drive at work to support local charities. Both with donations and volunteer hours, it was inspiring, humbling and sad in equal measure. Seeing a kid bouncing off the walls as they have fresh milk for the first time in a while still hasn’t left my thoughts.

I’ll be donating more time and, where I can, funds to these guys going forward.

We have a local charity in Gorton (Manchester) that supports local people in need. We’re dropping more stuff of shortly. We’ve two older small flat screen TV’s were taking up, but one has a faulty remote. Before I take it, I’ve ordered a replacement remote. We take bedding, games, kitchen stuff. The are desperate for stuff.

wide variety of suggestions there, thanks.  gut feeling is i’ll look for something local, i’ll do a bit of googling.

thank you.

A timely thread as I usually give a donation in lieu of sending Christmas cards, and I’ve not done anything yet.

Pick something t6hat struggles for donations.   Not the obvious popular ones.

Pick something t6hat struggles for donations.   Not the obvious popular ones.

how would i find this out?

Childrens charities, cancer charities, animals do well.  Refugees, womens refuges, homeless, alcohol and drug charities don’t do as well.  Small local charities often struggle as well

If you can’t put something feel good and cuddly on your adverts its harder to get money

The Trussell Trust, RNLI and Refuge get our Christmas donations. Wonderful people doing wonderful things.

But I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a bad charity donation if the intention is honourable So choose a cause close to your heart, Google a bit, then send it over.

Ours went to the local food bank, FoE, Crisis and The Guardian Christmas Appeal

Used to donate to the Sally Army but they’ve been getting a lot of stick for some fairly unpleasant transphobic behaviour, so they’re not getting any from us this year.

The R4 appeal this year is St Martin’s for the homeless. It’s easy to do and, as I listen to R4 a fair bit, it is the one I donate to.

So OP – are you still buying ‘real’ gifts for others – but hoping for charity donations in return?

We’ve been all around the houses with this. It’s most definitely the worst part of the Christmas (sorry, winter solstice 🙂  ) experience for me. Like you, my wife and I really don’t need or want presents. We’ve asked for donations then other people feel awkward when we give an actual gift…but they want and an actual gift rather than a donation…but it somehow creates tension. And we’ve done the one small thoughtful but low value thing each….but somehow gift inflation seems to lift the value back up again over the years.

This year we’ve gone very small again with heavy emphasis on something slightly less me me me. Books from a very good Highland Hospice 2nd hand book shop. Charity calendars, bird and bat boxes. Found out there is such a thing as a charity shop gift card that they encourage you not to bother spending if you don’t need to! And we’ve bought each other a gift our younger 7yr old selves would have liked and they are on their way to a 7 year old that actually needs some presents via a local charity.

So OP – are you still buying ‘real’ gifts for others – but hoping for charity donations in return?

yep, treating everyone else exactly as we have done before, spending more on kids and not such a lot on adults.

We’ve been all around the houses with this. It’s most definitely the worst part of the Christmas (sorry, winter solstice    ) experience for me. Like you, my wife and I really don’t need or want presents. We’ve asked for donations then other people feel awkward when we give an actual gift…but they want and an actual gift rather than a donation…but it somehow creates tension.

nope, no tension here, everyones happy with our wishes and dont feel awkward when they get gifts in return :-). im still expecting a few small gifts as some prefer to do that anyway, but its really no issue, we’re not forcing our wishes upon anyone and theyll be gratefully received too.

its mainly just me and my wife itll affect, we’ve spent hundreds on each other before but dont see the point now, so prefer the money to go where its needed.  and any adults that ask us what we want we’ll say “we’d prefer it if you give a charity donation instead please, if you dont mind”.  but theyll still get the usual gifts from us unless they say otherwise.

ive now located the payment details for the local foodbank.  it wasnt as easy as i thought, followed the links on their site but the payment page says its closed down now and no longer in use so i messaged them.  got back to me within a few hours with a new link, so thats where our money will go this year.

thanks for your suggestions, in the end it felt better going local.

cheers

thanks for your suggestions, in the end it felt better going local.

good – at the end of the day its what feels right that matters.

I have finally ( I think) persuaded my family to stop buying me tat and reached a point of “no presents” all round

I do the same these days. I like the ethos of these guys. Feels like something really important and a little goes a long way out there. Providing long term help that mean people can help themselves and the environment.

https://rippleeffect.org/

On a similar theme. Yesterday I upset one of the managers in work.

In the team I work it’s an 8:2 ratio of women. It seems every week there is a collection going around for some reason or other: buy a gift for the woman who brings biscuits into the monthly staff meeting; money to buy a present because someones dog been unwell, and every birthday/return from sick leave etc

I have told them I don’t want to be part of this, and explained at various times if I feel need to buy a gift for someone I prefer to do so myself to convey the sincerity of the gesture. I feel the collections are forced on people for often purposes different to those suggested and it’s a waste of money contributing to wasteful consumption.

So yesterday. Team meeting – on the table as we entered there was little gift bags and a cup cakes. As meeting ended I left and because, for cholesterol reasons, I didn’t take a cake, and for the aforementioned reasons I didn’t take a gift bag. I later had an upset manager call me to let me know she felt disrespected that I didn’t take the cake or gift bag.

I explained the above to her, and her response was that I could have taken it and just binned them afterwards .. which emphasised to me the wastefulness of the whole thing.

So, merry Xmas as Stwers.

From, The Grinch

E-machine – I have some sympathy for the constant stream of collections issues, and once that starts it’s hard to stop (Jon got a birthday gift why didn’t I) BUT I’d much rather work somewhere that sort of stuff happened than somewhere it never did, and I’d much rather only have to organise it or come up with the gifts once in a blue moon than think of my own meaningful gift for the size of my contribution when it is a reason I want to gift for.

Expecting people to eat cakes because they are there is dim, but I actually think it was a bit rude not to take the gift bag.  The reality is the waste has already happened so all you achieved by not taking it was making yourself feel superior.  Now I’ve no idea what was in the gift bag and if you could have regifted it, donated to charity, etc BUT if a manager has gone to the effort to try to make their team feel valued, (in some work places that will have been at her own expense as it’s just too hard to get that stuff signed off) then basically shrugging and walking off was not very appreciative.  If hard times come and she has to decide who gets the chop, there will be one name on her mind who “just doesn’t really gel with the rest of the team”.  

I know plenty of people here say they go to work purely to earn money, it’s a transactional relationship and there is no need to like your coworkers etc.  I think that is odd: across your career you will spend about 80000 hrs working – if you don’t like the place/people/culture I’d move, being the grinch can be fun if everyone else finds it funny, once you start ruining their fun you are now a problem.

Works both ways Poly.  Why should you have to participate in something you feel wasteful?  I never participated in work christmas presents secret santa thing and compulsory cake?  What about if you are diabetic?  sugar free diet?

Respect works both way.

collections at my workplace were multiday things with a large number of staff.  I would contribute if I wanted to and not if I didn’t.  When left I told them NOT to make a fuss of me and they respected that.

Funniest tho was when a useless manager left.  The collection was sent round 4 wards.  Raised £4.  I laughed

but I actually think it was a bit rude not to take the gift bag. The reality is the waste has already happened so all you achieved by not taking it was making yourself feel superior. Now I’ve no idea what was in the gift bag and if you could have regifted it, donated to charity, etc BUT if a manager has gone to the effort to try to make their team feel valued, (in some work places that will have been at her own expense as it’s just too hard to get that stuff signed off) then basically shrugging and walking off was not very appreciative.

This. There was no donation as part of this transaction, or reciprocation expected. Yes, like me you don’t like excessive tat in your life (or the planet), but this was a situation where you thank the giver, take it with you and drop it straight to a charity shop.

To call you (if it actually happened) is odd. They are either especially brittle or you were especially rude/inappropriate, even just with your body language.

@sadexo – sorry wrote a long reply that the forum ate!  Quick response: as a gifter in some of these situations what matters to me is that it is a charity YOU care about and your reasons for suggesting them are clear.  I’ve had a few who did the “we don’t need anything, honestly please just donate it to children in need or something” type responses and I’ve had “we really don’t need anything, we are so fortunate and the only think that could make me happier at Christmas is knowing that those less lucky than us were getting something too – I remember my first bike and how it shaped my childhood, it would be lovely if people who would normally give to us could donate to this women’s aid shelter to help buy a kid a present that might shape their life”…  outcome might be identical – but one still felt like I was giving a gift to my relative and the other felt like they couldn’t be bothered to come up with any ideas!

Yes I accept I could have gone with the act and taken the cake and just put it in the bin and dropped the gift bag to the local charity shop – however the whole nonsense just continues and the waste bin gets fuller.

I guess it’s the norm of today’s throw away society to buy things we don’t need and as happy to see things go straight in the bin rather than risk offending.

But of course I’m the Grinch

I’m sure one of the more difficult to kidnap members of the team would have polished off the spare cake too.

and I’ve had “we really don’t need anything, we are so fortunate and the only think that could make me happier at Christmas is knowing that those less lucky than us were getting something too – I remember my first bike and how it shaped my childhood, it would be lovely if people who would normally give to us could donate to this women’s aid shelter to help buy a kid a present that might shape their life”

see i also like that idea too, but i probably think too deeply about these things.  yes, if theres a site that shows specifics like you can buy ‘child A’ a bike directly as theyve had a sh1t start in life’ then great.  but id then be thinking “what if i didnt buy child A that present?  do they not get anything?  what about child B?  and C?  and hundreds of others?  if A gets something, who buys for B and C?  and is there a chance some kids will get presents and some not?  see i told you i think too deeply about it 😀  at least if you just buy food for the homeless then whatever you buy will all get shared out.