What makes a charity a charity?

[AsleepInYorkshire]

Not long after she retired my Mum volunteered to work in a Dove House Hospice shop.

Recently a respected member of our community asked for suggestions on where he could leave his wealth after his death.

I'm sorry to ask this question but how does "one" work out which charities aren't, well, aren't efficient because huge amounts of their "contributions" are soaked up before they get to the front line?

Sorry if it sounds cynical

AiY

[mc2fool]

Well, the "formal" way would be to look at the charities' accounts and annual reports, although of course those can sometimes be less than clear.

Start here: https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/

[Dod101]

Not long after she retired my Mum volunteered to work in a Dove House Hospice shop.

Recently a respected member of our community asked for suggestions on where he could leave his wealth after his death.

I'm sorry to ask this question but how does "one" work out which charities aren't, well, aren't efficient because huge amounts of their "contributions" are soaked up before they get to the front line?

Sorry if it sounds cynical

AiY

mc2fool is of course correct but as he implies that is not always an easy task even for the most skilled. I start off by looking at the cause being supported, and if I like that I will take a closer look. If you have had personal experience, (I have with a couple of medical charities whilst my late wife suffered from a blood cancer) that can tell a lot. I am not that bothered by say, the CEO being paid more than the Prime Minister (as I think scrumpyjack said recently), depending on the size of the charity of course. Charities can be complex and often I guess CEO's need to have very good management skills as well as ensuring compliance with increasingly complex regulations and so on.

Local charities can sometimes be good and often run on a shoestring, but they can also reflect local prejudices and I tend to avoid them. Broadly, I categorise charities as medical/people, animals, and the environment/external. I concentrate on the first of these but we will all decide for ourselves which should have priority, reflecting our own interests/prejudices.

I appreciate that I am not answering your question and I do not have an answer. I do not think though that living via sackcloth and ashes necessarily makes for a great charity.

Dod

[EverybodyKnows]

I tend to donate to charities that are very small on the grounds that the money will have a bigger impact. That doesn't mean it is more efficient, but it works for me.

Whilst paying for management/admin costs is not appealing often it may result in more efficiency. You could look at the percentage of spend on head office resources, some charities publish this I think. Obviously clever accountants can manipulate this figure.

[Lanark]

Choosing a good charity is very difficult, I think it was BIll Gates who said that giving his money away is more difficult than earning it!

Places with low overheads often just means they rely heavily on volunteers.

One issue is that some causes are far more popular than others: Children and Animal charities often have huge reserves and with more cash that they know what to do with, start paying their execs huge salaries.
At the same time charities for the Aged and Zoos are struggling and have an overworked underpaid workforce.

Many Zoos have saved entire species from extinction by releasing new populations from captivity, but despite this good work a lot of people think they should all be shut down on principle. I blame a lot of this on the American commercial zoos, so called 'sanctuaries' which don't do any good work at all and give the entire sector a bad name.

[Loup321]

I get sent a lot of raffle tickets for various charities. I usually buy them if I like the charity. Recently, however, I have been reading the small print on the back of the tickets. The amount that actually goes to the charity varies ENORMOUSLY! I forget which charities I read, but one had something like for every pound, 25p went in prizes, 10p in administering the raffle, and the rest to the charity. Another was more like 35p in prizes, 60p in administering the raffle, and the rest to the charity. The headline prizes were similar (£10,000 or a car, or something like that), but it was a bit of an eye-opener.

But if I stop buying the tickets that spend more on administering the raffle than on the charity, then they will still send me tickets (probably for years, as I am probably on the database of people that buy charity raffle tickets), and so their costs will stay the same but the revenue will go down. So surely it makes them more efficient if I just buy the raffle tickets every time. Then we go down many rabbit holes and never get a sensible conclusion.

So I just buy all the tickets, if I like the charities. (Or they sit on the side of the sofa waiting for me to buy them, until I realise that it's too late, and then I have to worry about whether the sticky labels are recyclable or not.)

[BobbyD]

Not long after she retired my Mum volunteered to work in a Dove House Hospice shop.

Recently a respected member of our community asked for suggestions on where he could leave his wealth after his death.

I'm sorry to ask this question but how does "one" work out which charities aren't, well, aren't efficient because huge amounts of their "contributions" are soaked up before they get to the front line?

Sorry if it sounds cynical

AiY

Not cynical although possibly misguided. In the same way that it pays to take time investigating which charity will do the most with your money it pays for the charity to put time and resources in to investigating how to best deploy your money. Throwing it randomly at the problem in the first way that comes to mind might result in 99.999999% of your bequest reaching the front line but almost pretty much guarantees that it will get their in far from the most useful form, and without proper safeguards on misuse or misappropriation.

If you want to maximise the effect of your donation: https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

[dionaeamuscipula]

I get sent a lot of raffle tickets for various charities. I usually buy them if I like the charity. Recently, however, I have been reading the small print on the back of the tickets. The amount that actually goes to the charity varies ENORMOUSLY! I forget which charities I read, but one had something like for every pound, 25p went in prizes, 10p in administering the raffle, and the rest to the charity. Another was more like 35p in prizes, 60p in administering the raffle, and the rest to the charity. The headline prizes were similar (£10,000 or a car, or something like that), but it was a bit of an eye-opener.

But if I stop buying the tickets that spend more on administering the raffle than on the charity, then they will still send me tickets (probably for years, as I am probably on the database of people that buy charity raffle tickets), and so their costs will stay the same but the revenue will go down. So surely it makes them more efficient if I just buy the raffle tickets every time. Then we go down many rabbit holes and never get a sensible conclusion.

So I just buy all the tickets, if I like the charities. (Or they sit on the side of the sofa waiting for me to buy them, until I realise that it's too late, and then I have to worry about whether the sticky labels are recyclable or not.)

The marginal cost to the organiser of printing and sending tickets to you (and to each of the thousands of people they send them to who just put them straight in the recycling) is very small.

I said "organiser" rather than "charity" because, just like those bags that come through the door asking for donations of clothes, quite a number of the organisers will be commercial organisations who cynically print the charity's name on something that is just a business and the charitable donation is just a marketing expense.

DM

[Rhyd6]

I don't give to any of the large charities as I used to deal with their tax affairs and although I do agree that a first rate CEO is worth their weight the size of expenses account was, in almost all cases, eye watering. I now give to local charities that help or are useful to the people in the area where I live.

R6

[Lootman]

I don't give to any of the large charities as I used to deal with their tax affairs and although I do agree that a first rate CEO is worth their weight the size of expenses account was, in almost all cases, eye watering. I now give to local charities that help or are useful to the people in the area where I live.

I agree that local (and therefore small) is best.

In any event I only give to charities that will spend the money in the UK. There is too much deprivation and suffering in the UK for me to want to give money to any overseas cause.

[tjh290633]

I get sent a lot of raffle tickets for various charities. I usually buy them if I like the charity. Recently, however, I have been reading the small print on the back of the tickets. The amount that actually goes to the charity varies ENORMOUSLY! I forget which charities I read, but one had something like for every pound, 25p went in prizes, 10p in administering the raffle, and the rest to the charity. Another was more like 35p in prizes, 60p in administering the raffle, and the rest to the charity. The headline prizes were similar (£10,000 or a car, or something like that), but it was a bit of an eye-opener.

But if I stop buying the tickets that spend more on administering the raffle than on the charity, then they will still send me tickets (probably for years, as I am probably on the database of people that buy charity raffle tickets), and so their costs will stay the same but the revenue will go down. So surely it makes them more efficient if I just buy the raffle tickets every time. Then we go down many rabbit holes and never get a sensible conclusion.

So I just buy all the tickets, if I like the charities. (Or they sit on the side of the sofa waiting for me to buy them, until I realise that it's too late, and then I have to worry about whether the sticky labels are recyclable or not.)

My feeling on this is never to buy the lottery tickets. Better to donate directly to the charity and get Gift Aid on the donation.

I have a small number of charities which I support directly. Occasionally another will persuade me to donate, perhaps in memory of a deceased friend or because I consider it to be a deserving cause. Lottery tickets are never the route that I follow.

TJH

[gryffron]

I agree it varies enormously, and picking a "good" one is hard.

Some choose to look at admin costs, but that isn't always helpful. Some charities, like the Samaritans, spend their entire budget on admin. Because they don't directly support their beneficiaries with money. I don't think most people would consider them a "bad" charity.

There was a TV documentary about charities some years ago. Barring a few minor outliers:
Britain's "richest" charity was Guide Dogs for the Blind. With almost 20 years of cash reserves! Which is effectively infinite if they invest it. Long support from Blue Peter, cute puppies, widespread sympathy for blind people, and reducing need for their services, all combine to mean they're absolutely loaded.
RSPCA and RSPB are also loaded, and far too political for many people. If you want a "good" animal charity PDSA are much more needy and deserving.

Local doesn't always mean better. As already stated some local charities are just power trips for local busybodies. And occasionally just lining someone's pockets. Understanding what they do and how they spend their money is still important. Learning from a beneficiary is probably more useful than from a fundraiser, which is much easier if they're local.

Gryff

[SimonS]

I agree it varies enormously, and picking a "good" one is hard.



Gryff

As has already been implied, many charities now exist to support the people running them, even quite well respected ones.

I used to live close to Wokingham, where there was a (the?) school for the Blind Dogs. A person who worked there told me years ago that the charity had more money than they knew what to do with, but was committed to an endless advertising programme so that they didn't slip from the top of the donations table.

At the time they also employed a new publicity manager and a newer, bigger advertising campaign because, as my friend reported it, the new manager was on an incentive scheme so regardless of need, was going BIG.

Another in need of no support is Motability, reported recently to have reserves over a billion, clearly not giving value for money but regrettably protected from competition by being VAR exempt by Act of Parliament where prospective challengers are not. They too have an aggressive campaign on TV, while a disturbing investigation revealed that the vehicles are too often the personal transport of a 'carer' and never being seen in the support of the person funding it via their mobilty allowance.

Acting as an executor, I was surprised how many societies were aggressively prompt in informing me that they had a bequest in the will and demanding why it hadn't been paid yet, in one case before the body had been released for burial! Yes i sent that straight to the charities commission; only to be told that actually complaints against charities weren't their concern, but sending me to the appropriate people.

Nor was death a barrier to the begging letters, many started "We notice you haven't donated again this year, why not?" This to a 102 year old woman who obviously had her name on the "suckers list". I returned many of the mails to the senders, one replied with a condolence letter and 6 appeals for a donation all on the same day, then explained that owing to their printing schedule letters would continue to arrive for a further 6 weeks.

One ( a services charity) wrote a personal letter of condolence, thanked the deceased's memory for all the gifts and donation over the 43 years she had been active on their behalf and inquired about the well-being and future of her husband, with suggestions of service homes to apply to if he was going to be in need of care. They also removed the name from the mailing list almost immediately and filtered the mail already in the schedule, or at least we got no more from them

Indeed. having been of the generation who had accepted the silent contract between the Services and the Government that the years of poor pay and difficult circumstances were countered by the lifetime of support, the deceased felt that a variety of governments had not honoured their words in any way, and the charities were unable to do so adequately. The will however gave scope for the executors to make a donation to the charity in their name outside of the bequests.

SimonS