Quote: billwill @ 15th November 2013, 12:18 PM GMTDid you mean "I hate" not "I have"
well spotted Bill, I did mean hate.
Giving to charity. Page 3
And those sweety bags they have in some office, give a £1 to help special kids.
(kids will recieve 5p, we get 70p, sweety manufacturers 25p, you got your sweets now clear off greedy)
It is a great pity that we now live in a world where wacky individuals in other countries can impede the good work of organizations here. In this case it is Australia. Normally it is the US which is full of crackpots.
I am the third owner of a small bungalow built in 1968. I know its entire history. The first owners were here until 1982 when I was in my teens. They were influential on me as they were the epitome of the caring wealthy. Very giving, personable, unusually supportive to neighbours, community minded and without the modern obsessions about profit. He was the Deputy Head of the RAC and could have owned a six bedroom detached but instead they together chose to live modestly in a two-bedroom semi. Actually, I thought for many years that they represented the norm of wealthy people. That they weren't came as a shock to me.
Looking back, what I realize made them different was that they were members of the Salvation Army. They kept it private. They hardly ever spoke about religion. In fact, I'm not sure that they ever did. Nearly always, the conversation was about comedy programmes on the TV, pets, the garden or the football and the rugby. Nevertheless, that context now explains them precisely, particularly with the passing years.
Religious organizations do have their cranky aspects. From a modern perspective, one would be on sexual orientation. At the grass roots, it is a fairly recent phenomenon to have hotheads who are actively engaged with that particular agenda and to me it always seems American in origin. Traditionally, certain requirements have been in "the teachings" but most of the membership thought of them as so marginal they never thought about them at all. The way they led their own lives mattered more. It probably meant everything.
It is worth saying, though, that what was required of them could be very difficult. To depict them as preachers of a set of beliefs who are at war with the wider community isn't fair or accurate and nor is the singling out of sexual orientation as a battleground, however right to many that might seem. The Salvation Army is very severe, for example, on the matter of divorce and no more so than to its own members. Therefore when the marriage of my neighbours' son dissolved, he was thrown out of the organisation in disgrace. The heartache it caused was considerable. Nevertheless, all involved remained stoical and their charity work continued without prejudice to any individual or group. Basically, that's how they work.
I think people don't get the split mindedness that a lot of truly devout do.
I've known people who absolutely believe in a religious sense that the world is 3000 years old and we were moulded by Gods hands in his image.
One of them's a physicist and another a surgeon.
You kinda have one brain for temple and one for reality.
I think you mean 6000 years old, 3000 years is just silly.
I don't care how old she is I'm not dating your mum.
Quote: Horseradish @ 15th November 2013, 1:53 PM GMTIt is a great pity that we now live in a world where wacky individuals in other countries can impede the good work of organizations here. In this case it is Australia. Normally it is the US which is full of crackpots.
What are talking about?
To answer the original question, I will never give to Greenpeace again. I did once years ago. Had listened to the guy talk go on about the saving the wales, thinking he just wanted some change put in a tin. At the end of it when he wanted me to sign up to monthly payments and I said I couldn't afford, he basically accused me of not caring. I signed up and forgot to cancel before the first payment. In the years after that I would politely refuse to even listen to the workers and was occasionally abused for that. I knew a number of other people who at the time had similar experiences.
To be fair that is not just Greenpeace, the same chuggers work for a whole range of charities, and I believe are on some form of commission.
For the particular charities concerned the cost of employing them is worthwhile for the funds generated, as with other high cost fund raising strategies, but the charity pot is not bottomless and the more that gets syphoned of by fund raisers the less ultimately there is for the good causes.
I see the estimable Rev. Flowers has been illustrating the point I made earlier about the widow's mite going to pay for executive expense account lunches, though in his case I suspect it was not just pate de fois gras going on the tab.
The thing with chuggers is they provide the holy grail of fund raising, replicable predictable funding. So the companies that hire them, never the actual charity. May charge around 50 percent of what they raise, but if you need millions per year to provide life boats, or rebuild a hospital its essential.
But be under no illusion they are employed by a 3rd party for a decent wage.
The real threat is that charities are supposed to be fast reacting and flexible. But when some almost industrially drain the giving pool then small, reactive or niche charities starve and die.