General Chat

I never knew that charities paid big wages to their staff.

http://www.theopinionsite.org/is-the-nspcc-being-dishonest-in-order-to-get-our-money/#comment-4127

I knew they paid some wages but that is quite an eye opener thank you.

I believe that in the 1950's a well known charity was exposed in one of the newspapers. It was found that for every £1 collected only 2 pence was used for charity purposes and the rest went in administration charges.
The people who ran this charity paid themselves well above the average wages in the country and lived in very large houses on private estates and all had upmarket cars with money they didn't have to work for.

GP

How sad it is though. I suppose wages have to be paid to get the right people who are experienced, but I've never before considered just how much gets spent on administration and functions promoting the charities. Its a shame, when small charities really struggle to survive!

I don't understand some of these charities.
I have just had some questions for the Carers Outreach charity which I joined when I was a carer,unfortunately I couldn't go to the drop in where you can meet and chat to others who are dealing with similar situations much when I joined as I couldn't leave my husband.
When my husband died I started to go,just for a couple of hours and have hopefully helped others just by talking and understanding.I was told that you had 2 years after the death to qualify going and then you became a volunteer,which seemed a good idea.
I have made friends there.This meeting used to be in the office where the local administrator works,but has now transferred to the local Baptist church where they have a cafe for all sorts of activities.It is much better,we buy our own drinks cakes etc.and lots of us enjoy the morning.
An 84 year old gentleman who lost his wife a year last April has been told that he is to finish in 3 months and he said about being a volunteer...No that has stopped he is told due to funding..That means I will have to stop in August as it will be 2 years then for me.
We approached the manager and said that as volunteers we weren't costing anything,and would willingly drive anyone to meetings etc...oh it's the paperwork.....ridiculous...I get the news letter by e mail....I took an elderly lady (who has been a volunteer for them for 14 years)to a carers lunch last Monday and as she was getting in my car the manager said ...have you got your receipt to claim for the lunch.
My argument ..and this gents is that we don't want to claim anything,just give our services free...why do they give such an excuse?
We have been given a leaflet about joining the Red Cross instead.

Brenda, thats really sad. I hope that gentleman can volunteer somewhere else if he wants to? I watched a programme on ch 4 about young carers, a young teenage girl looked after her blind parents and all the children and went to a carers group. She got no help and was at her wits end, it was making her start to bully her younger siblings through the stress - but she was told that she had to carry on or she didnt qualify for the carers group anymore. She told the camera about a friend who had killed herself as she couldnt cope, who was also a young carer. The work carers do is amazing and saves the state a fortune! Some people seem to be making a lot of money from the other very big well known charities.....

I remember many years ago when my ex was a travel agent he told me Lord and Lady whatever was travelling by concord to the US, paid for by the leading charity they were patrons of

Lord above!!! How odd these things are allowed to happen....but then the people allowing it to happen are the ones benefitting....

Many years ago, my sister worked in Oxfam's headquartes in Oxford.
She was disgusted even then about how much the hierarchy paid themselves.
It's the same with many charities. More recently, she worked as an events manager, and also let rooms in the bulding she worked in.
One charity - something like 'Dreams come true' actually became bankrupt as most of the money was creamed off for the organisers.

I often wonder about 'chuggers' (charity 'muggers' in the high street), they're paid £33 a day to try to get you to set up a direct debit with the charity they represent - that's £33 for every annoying chugger, that is coming out of charitable donations!

English Heritage - another charity. Set up to 'Save our Heritage' , by taking historic builings off councils and attempting to run them ata profit. all very well until major work is needed - then they close. Apparently, they can no longer afford blue plaques -
yet the top 24 staff earn £54008112
This makes interesting reading:
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about/who-we-are/how-we-spend-our-money/transparency-data/senior-staff-salaries/

Have to admit to never giving just money to charities since my sister worked for Oxfam. I will, however shop in charity shops - if they've got somethng I want, I'll happily pay, but won't give them money for nothing.

Check out how many charities have their headquarters in some of the most expensive parts of London and other major cities.

High St Charity shops have paid managers ok they work very hard. Then there's area managers with company cars petrol expenses and mobiles. Then you have managers above them all with company cars etc.
Charity shops do an amazing job but once the high rents and upkeep have been paid. The managers and the managers managers are well paid .the cars and the petrol and the meetings, whats left I wonder.

I dont really like donating - which sounds bad, BUT the reason is that it doesnt go to people who need it (kids coats or shoes etc for example. Ive donated enough stuff and it just doesnt appear in the shop!!), I put eveything on freecycle and ok, its not immune from fraudsters but I do know that its used by many people who really need it. We've got a family of Roma travellers on my street, they dont bother anyone and are quiet but arent allowed to claim benefits (I dont want to get into the debate of whether they should or not, just saying) and they struggle. Ive given them dolls my daughter doesnt want, and outgrown clothes. They're grateful, and Im pleased the stuff has gone DIRECT to somebody. Im not daft enough to think they dont have cash in hand jobs but hey ho, we all have to do the best for our families.

I was told recently by the manager of a neighbouring shop that the charity shop for the Samaritans next door to him was refurbished before it opened at a cost of £50,000. I think it's disgraceful, the shop is out of the city centre, on the outskirts so depends mainly on locals or passing traffic for customers and it's in a relatively poor area too. They had two break ins recently, the first not too bad, the second, the burglar took cleaning stuff, tea, coffee and sugar from the kitchen area and rails of men's trousers, sweaters and women's sweaters, no children's stuff. The Manager said they would have to sell £7000 worth of stock to recoup the loss (I think that's what she meant) Due to publicity in the paper about the break in, people have been dropping donations of clothing etc to them to make up the stock deficiency again.

I would rather give things direct if I could altho I know the Samaritans need all the money they can get to fund the help they give and it is a very important service.

Lizx

.......and then there are the 'charities' called Public schools!!

My son passed a scholarship exam a couple of years ago but then wasnt given the scholarship, I never found out why. His behaviour is excellent too. I wondered if its because I was on Jobseekers allowance at the time and we didnt seem to be 'the part'. Although its possible that too many kids passed the exam and not all of them could have places of course. We know our place, in t'gutter!! :-D

The only donations I give are to the Salvation Army and the Poppy Appeal. Have known for years that most of the money given to charities goes on salaries, such a sad state of affairs because there are so many genuine cases that need help.
Used to do voluntary work for a well known charity and left because I felt I was been taken for granted.
Sad really because I enjoyed the work.

Yet another local charity shop broken into, what low lives do this kind of thing?
Even tho some of us feel the balance isn't right in the way these shops are managed etc (as above) it's not right for someone to go in and steal the contents or the money. So demoralising for the staff especially the volunteers who don't get paid.

Lizx



http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/raiders_strike_at_norwich_charity_shop_1_1791159

Mention of the Salvation Army reminded me that apparently they own many properties that they let out to their people, at low rents.

Lizx