The Cost of Charity

'Go sober for October',  'Hold a coffee morning in September.'  ..........................Just text for your free information pack.  Just how difficult is it to give up alcohol for a month OK I haven't gone a whole month without alcohol for years but that's not the point! or hold a coffee morning?  Stick on the kettle, bake a cake, invite a few friends around and hey ho off we go!

In an ideal world charities shouldn't have to exist.  But this isn't an ideal world so I accept that charities do very good work and raise a lot of money for very good causes.

However what I don't really agree with, is all this so called 'free' stuff that they keep sending out in an effort to entice us to donate.  I will freely admit that I have absolutely no idea how much all this 'free' stuff costs the charities in relation to how much money is actually donated.  But the cost of employing people re the administration/packaging of these items must be astronomical.

I frequently get sent personalised address labels with a cute little dog or cat in the corner.  Address labels?  Seriously?  It's 2016!  Personalised address labels were trendy in the 1970s.  Does anybody even send letters these days?  These charities need to move with the times.  I'm sure a free app would generate more money for the charity than a personalised address label!  ..................And while I'm on the subject of free gifts......................... how many of you have received one of those nasty scratchy charity pens?  Pens, you would have thought, would be a useful free gift.  Not so the ones that the charities send out.  If they do actually work (and quite often they don't) they are the most scratchy horrible pen to write with.  As soon as I receive one, I chuck it in the bin along with all the other blurb that is in the envelope.

'Brieflets' (notelets or whatever else you want to call them) - is another very popular 1970s item that charities delight in sending us.  After Birthdays and Christmases, when I was a child, I used to write all my thank you letters on these and while I appreciate that it is still very nice to receive a handwritten thank you card; just how many people these days actually do so?  Why don't charities devise an app that can be downloaded for free I'd design one myself but I'm not clever enough and then every time one wants to send a 'brieflet' (but it wouldn't be called a brieflet - it would have some high flying marketing name) one can do it instantly but £1 would be donated to charity.

Just think of the amount of paper that would be saved if all these charities stopped sending reams and reams of stuff that one never reads.

I donate to the 'RSPCA' & 'Dogs Trust' on an annual basis.  I do so because I own a very gorgeous little dog, that probably would not even be alive had one of the dogs charities not intervened and 'rescued' her from her horrible life.  And for that, I am eternally grateful.  However, that does not mean that I want to 'hound' people to support the same charities that I do.

Every year these charities send me raffle tickets to sell.  The first year I received these, I duly went round friends and family, sold all the raffle tickets and sent off the money to the charities, along with the raffle ticket stubs ready for the draw.  Never heard anything back re who had won?!  The second year I was sent two books of raffle tickets, at which point I returned them with a letter stating that although I was happy to support the charity I did not feel comfortable pursuing others to support a charity that they may not want to.  I got no reply to that letter I suspect because the charity databases, like everything else these days are unable to respond to a personal request! And ever since I've received at least one book of raffle tickets to sell each year from both of these charities.  Needless to say they have ended up in the bin, along with all the other c*** that they send me.  I didn't ask for these, I don't want them and I'm certainly not going to pay to return them.

.................But this has got me thinking.........................  When I did sell my book of raffle tickets, I made about £20-£30.  (Can't remember exactly how many I sold cos it was about 10 years ago).  I then had to write a cheque ('cos obviously I couldn't send cash through the post).  This is obviously quite a lot of hassle for a busy person who is not organised.  ...................  I didn't actually have a problem selling these raffle tickets because I like to consider myself as a very good salesperson.  But I'm sure there's a lot better salespeople than me?  Just what is to stop people selling zillions of books of raffle tickets for the 'RSPCA' or 'Dogs Trust' and then just not giving them the money for these or entering them into the draw?  How do these charities keep a check on what is going on?  The answer is, they don't!!!!!  For the last 10 years I've just thrown away all their raffle books and no one has contacted me to find out where they are, but if I was a dishonest person I could just have sold all these raffle tickets, not sent them back (because lets face it, how many people would even think to check that they've been submitted - and how do you check anyway?) and then kept all the money for myself?!!!!

Oh and another thing.............................  Charities paying people to persuade others to donate to them is not a new thing.  20 years ago I had a temporary job - very temporary, I think it only lasted two weeks - selling badges for a charity.  I have absolutely no idea which charity this was for.  I just can't remember.  At the time I wasn't interested.  To me it was just a sales job that I knew I could make money from.  It was a job selling badges to people in a city centre for charity.  The badges cost £1 and for every badge I sold I got 30p.  At the time, I remember a very good friend saying that she really didn't agree with charities employing people to sell badges.  And to be honest, before I got the job, I just thought that all these 'charity badge seller's' on the street were volunteers.  ...............But 20 years ago I was making at least £10 per hour selling these badges.  (And this was in the days when £3 per hour was the minimum wage - though minimum wage hadn't been invented then) I just used to find somewhere where there was a queue and 'work it'!!!  And I remember the 'manager' who was in charge of us telling us that if we were really good we could probably make about £6 per hour???!!!  ......................I've obviously missed my vocation in life. Lol!!!

.....................But I digress..................  The cost of charity............................

...................As far as I'm concerned..................... the cost of charity..................... is a lot?????

There again I may be 'ranting' unnecessarily because as I said above, I have absolutely no idea re the economics and the financial costs of all this so called free stuff that all these charities are giving away.???

Maybe these charities are making a lot of money from 'employing people' to hassle people on their behalf.  But actually............................ as far as I'm concerned.................. donating to charity should be a voluntary thing and being hounded to donate should NEVER EVER be an option??!!