O T Begging charity adverts on TV

I agree, and also all the charity lotteries.

"the Health Lottery - a grouping of 51 charity lotteries, known also as 'so ciety' lotteries - gives only the minimum legal requirement of 20 per cent of takings to charity, whereas the National Lottery gives 28 per cent to go od causes. "

Many charity lotteries are run by 'external lottery managers' and from the above it appears that many 'external lottery managers' might be keeping nea rly 80% of the income (the prizes on charity lotteries are pretty derisory with the headline £25k prize being a "superdraw" four times a year).

Owain

It's the same with most charities. They outsource a lot of fund raising to third parties who may only return a few percent of the money raised to the charity. I doubt if of little the money raised by street chuggers, cold calling doorstep saleman or tin rattlers outside of supermarkets/sheds goes to the charities they claim to represent.

I fully agree. And big organised charties are mostly scams. If you want to be charitable, do so *locally* and *directly* to those you personally can see are in need. Don't trust intermediaries who will pass on little or nothing on to the cause they claim to support (the Clinton Foundation for example passed on *nothing* of the money they raised for Haiti to the Haitians).

The only exception I make is The Salvation Army. They do a lot of good work and fund raise by ways other than and in addition to the collection box.

You should google more.

NT

most charities are just a money making fiddles and jobs for those who run them...peanuts go to the needy .....

as a trustee for 3 charities, all of which are run by volunteers, I'd disagree with you.

Chidren in need is the only charity that I donate to, simply because

I also take exception of the excessive Children in Need on BBC TV. when it started yonks ago it was OK, but not it takes over for days, they even cancel scheduled programs for repeats of the blasted thing.

I would give if the charities solved the problems then they wouldn't be required to continuously bombard you with their crap...but they would then be out of a job ....

"Most charities" does not preclude many smaller ones which are run on a perfectly ethical basis.

It's the main big ones with national reach that are inevitable targets for total corruption and being taken over by professional charity milkers.

I have to say I do wonder this myself, especially the ones offering a cuddly tiger or whatever and monthly reports on the animal etc. I bet they never say it was run over by a lumber ttruck etc.

Some of them are made cheaply by like minded agencies who use them as kind of loss leaders to get more business. However the bottom really has dropped out of advertising generally. We are all far too savvy nowadays so ignore most of them entirely. This is why we have the growth of subscription services I suppose but people are so used to a free lunch its hard to re educate the public that somebody somewhere needs to be paid to do things.

Maybe the channels should run a sponsor your local dross producing tv channel kind of advert. Brian

What does the RNIB lottery do i wonder?

Brian

If you want to give to charity, do so by standing order directly to their account, and not in response to chuggers, who will often take all of the first year's contribution as their fee.

Can you name them - so I can add them mentally to my "not a scam" list?

I too am pretty jaundiced by so called charities. You have the RSPCA who used to do good work, but now seem to be acting more like "police" - usually against random individuals, but I never hear of them taking on some random "travellers" who have manky mistreated old nags, nor do I hear them speaking out against halal and kosher slaughter without pre stunning.

Any charity that I see using a chugger goes onto my "ban" list too.

As does any charity that posts any gimmicks through my door that probably cost more than someone puts in the tin if they stood outside Sainsburys.

The raffles used to be run by RNIB. I know because I pulled the numbers out of a bin-bag once.

The postcode SN14 6NG for the RNIB lottery leads to Woods Group which run "charity raffles, weekly lotteries, payment processing & direct debit management" and "charity gaming consultancy".

A quick search suggests other clients, including lotteries, include Guide Dogs, Action for Blind People, Sight Savers, Great Ormond Street, National Trust, Cancer Research, Royal Star and Garter.

Owain

Broadback posted

Same here. My wife and I always buy a boxed CD set in preparation for it, so that we don't have to watch any TV at all.

He's talking about village hall charities and the like, which do tend to be run by unpaid volunteers, barring the odd thieving scumbag.

I am in two minds about professional fund raisers...

People often complain that only a small proportion of the money raised goes to the charity in question. However in many cases they are also very good at raising much much more than the charity itself would typically raise on its own - so their small percentage is still in absolute terms significantly more than they would have received otherwise.

Hence you can see what it in it for the charity.

From the donors POV however its less desirable (although I expect they can find a way to make direct donations that skip the fund raisers if they look carefully)