Charities

Right now there's a United Way drive at school. I don't want to give to them. They have a history of mismangagment and I'd rather just donate directly to organziations. We are hounded about this at school. Our names are called out during announcements if we hold out. Our principal wants everyone to participate and donate $50. I don't want to piss him off as he's my appraiser. I wrote a check for $5 and that's it. Hate this shit.

Of my own choice I give $5 a mth to the United Negro College Fund and $10 a mth to public radio (love payroll deduction). I'm also deciding whether to start giving $10 a mth to either Planned Parenthood or TARAL (TX Abortion Rights Action League).

stories of coercion and rebellion please. . .

I donate monthly to a specific charity/activist group which I've been a member of for about fourteen years now. I've never been specifically pressured to do so, though one time my dad expressed concern I wasn't giving back as much as I could to the world (and I agree I could do more).

I don't really have the money to donate these days, but I'd like to. At my last job, there was a United Way drive every year that I donated to, mostly because I felt somewhat pressured to (though I didn't contribute to the bank's PAC, thank you very much). I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the United Way, but there's probably worse things out there. As far as charities I'd like to donate to if I had the cash now, I'd give to Doctors Without Borders, the ACLU and a couple others.

I give to animal charities.

I don't have a lot of spare cash, but I do put in many volunteer hours. And I don't count my community radio show as volunteer hours. That's a benefit of the volunteer hours I put in on the programming committee, the board of directors, and the fundraising committee and fundraising and organizing.

ooh I feel for you Sam. We have those united way drives at work too; I think one of the big kahunas is on the board. My immediate supervisor (a different guy) once approached me about doing something for the united way and I said to him, "The United Way is such bullshit" without thinking, and then I was horrified at myself. He totally cracked up and agreed though, so no harm done!

A graceful way out of the United Way drives is to say that every year for New Years you donate to (Charity X served by the United Way) and that's your entire charity tithe, you do it that way to keep it simple when you do your taxes.

I donate a ton of time and PR work to various charities (food bank mostly, but also AIDS charities and environmental groups) through my job; I'm really glad that my company encourages such behavior. Personally I also throw some cash to a local peace activist organization.

Every year my mum gets sent a bunch of raffle tickets from various animal charities, and we all have to buy a book (we want to of course), even our dog and cat have a book bought in their names.

I've pretty much always worked for nonprofits; at one of them, they had a "giving back" campaign where employees were supposed to contirbute to the organization. (Becuase, I guess, if we didn't, who would; never mind our nonprofit-level salaries were already a form of contribution.) Anyway, to encourage this, the management printed out reports of which departments were giving at what percentages. (There was a three-person department that was giving at 67%, which lead to some speculation.) You needed to give at least $5 per year for it to "count", and the vice president of our department (who was terrible, really all about making herself look good to upper management) went so far as to put a $5 bill on everyone's desk saying this was from her and we could do what we wanted with it but she hoped we'd "do the right thing".

why don't they just say "look, we really want you to donate. We NEED you to donate. We will make things difficult for you if you don't donate" instead of farting around like that.

That said: The United Way has undergone a lot of major changes recently, which isn't to say it has solved its mismanagement problems, but from what I've heard it's a totally different beast. The advantage of United Way-like programs is that it allows small charities to have large fundraising campaigns -- and by giving through the United Way instead of to the charity directly, you allow that fundraising campaign to flourish. If everyone gave directly to the charity, the UW would disappear, which would reduce the fundraising capabilities of the individual charities significantly.

That's the theory anyways.

I just know the reason we are being pressured is so the prinicipal can look good to his colleagues by saying all of his faculty contibuted. Which is not in the spirit at all.

Another example: we have a committee here that sends plants and flowers to faculty and staff when they have lost a family member. Sounds nice, huh? Well they send it for anyone and everyone, aunts, grandmothers, brother-in-laws etc. And they announce funeral arrangments over the morning announcements. Well you know I'm sorry the Inudstrial Technology teacher's father-in-law died but must you really take up class time by giving out funeral info for someone most of us have never met?

So anyway to fund this floral extravangza faculty are expected to donate. Fine, I did so last year, what I could. This year they asked for a "suggested donation" that was twice as much as last years. I chose to give less and turned in a check for what I was comfortable giving. The next day another teacher on the committee brought the check back to me (while I was teaching class mind you) and said "This isn't for the right amount." I said, "This is what I could give." She says, "Well we don't want it if you're not going to give the full amount." I tore the check up and went back to my class.

What the hell?? Don't charitable causes need all the money they can get? How can you turn away donations? I think she thought she could bully me into writing a new check. . Hell no. I'm sure all the other teachers up here hate me.

During uni, I used to volunteer for a national/international AIDS charity geared towards the music industry. Found out about them while attending a show. That said, I was never pressured to either a) donate cash or b)recruit new members.

Actually, I initally joined for a way to get into shows for nowt. After I'd been there a while, I learned more about the cause (money we'd collect gets funneled to hospices and such). It was fun, though I lost touch with the home office after I graduated. Plan to rejoin them, at some point.

That all sounds quite horrible. You give what you can afford/want to give. - fukyabos&hispolitic!

If I'm a single bloke at Desk A & feel I can give $15 to a fund & married with kids guy on Desk B can only give $5 then fuk y'all! You surely can't give pressure on charity. To answer the question Sam yes give to charity but it is *entirely* on your conscience as to what you give!

I just had a discussion with someone about the United Way. I think it's a bit of an arm-twister and I don't give to them, but generally, they do serve a purpose .. the conversation was that this other person said she would like to give money to charity (!to get a tax deduction!) but didn't "know how"..!? That's where I think the United Way can serve a purpose .. to give people who don't "know how" to give to charity a place to do it.

In past conversations:
Also, I volunteer at a few places regularly & take a week off work each summer to take kids on a trip .. (and I don't say too much about it, but when people ask me where I'm going for vacation) .. and people say to me, "That's great. I've always wanted to do something like that...." long pause.. and I want to say "then why don't you?" - but I bite my tongue. ..

So I'm not trying to sound judgemental about people who don't give time or money .. because if you don't want to or can't, then that's up to you.. But it really irks me that people say they want to, but don't because it's too hard to find a charity.

.. and ILX seems like a conscientious community .. I'd be willing to bet that a large portion of you do some volunteer work .. tell us about it...

I've just become a member of a large, international charity. Before my first payment has even gone out, they've sent me a DVD about themselves and the work they do. Am I right to be annoyed at what looks like a huge waste of money that would be better spent on the causes they're supposed to be looking after? Or do promos like this somehow not cost the organisation anything? I'm pretty ticked off about it, really.

I just got suckered into being "locked up for muscular dystrophy" through some organization where I work. I turned them down last year when they called ("Oh! I'll be out of town!"), but the prospect of a free lunch made me think I can give up an hour of my time. I am a bad person.

you can ask about where your donation will go. They should say how much, if any, goes to administrative costs (which I would assume such materials would be.) That type of stuff could be funded by grants or something rather than individual donations.

Yeah, I know I should talk to them directly. I kinda wanted to find out if my ire was justified before I vented it.

They might get the DVD and other promotional stuff as a donation from the company that makes them in lieu of a cash donation. It's not unheard of. Though I'm guessing that they are probably taking the gamble that their marvellous DVD will make you give more money, or the same money for a longer period of time, or whatever, therefore it's a wise investment of their resources.

I used to volunteer for Oxfam for a year and often refused my lunch and travel expenses on the grounds that someone somewhere in the world would be better off with the £2 than I would be. But I don't think it works like that.

I used to feel guilty about using those free address labels charities sent you. so I would throw them away. Then I realized this was even more guilt-inducing so now use them happily thinking, "suckers!"

I get similarly frustrated at the "DO YOU HAVE A MINUTE FOR THE CHILDREN????" jagoffs littering the streets of Chicago. How much does it cost to put these people on the streets and pay for their matching jackets and hats and clipboards and shiny brochures? Really I'm just angry at being hassled while going about my business.

I'm a big advocate for finding a local organization dedicated to a cause about which you feel passionate and donating your time or money to them. It's easier to see the results of their work, and they are usually so strapped for resources that your donation has no choice but to go directly into their area of greatest need.

Has anyone every been a literacy buddy? I'm about to go to some training sessions and get myself hooked up with somebody.

Wait, that sounded way weirder than I had intended. "Get myself matched up with someone who needs reading help."

every year i donate to this organization.

As a volenteer (Oxfam) what really annoys me is when people say that ALL the money that gets donated should go straight to the charitable causes. Yeh, in an ideal world, but ffs, there's a lot of admin and organising that needs to go on, especially in a big NGO like Oxfam, and to expect all of it to go where it should go is just nieve. WIth Oxfam I think it's something like 5% goes to admin, which really isn't that much considering.

molly, does my boyfriend count? *rimshot* I love him dearly but reading comprehension are, self-admittedly, not his strong points. He's been studying XML so the last few nights I've been coaching on the pronuciation and meaning of things like "disparate", "discrete", "interject" vs. "inject" and "schema". Words are weird. I get them but it's hard to explain them using other words sometimes.

xxxpost to Molly: Me! (well, not qualified as an adult literacy tutor due to immense disorganisation on the part of my previous employer, but I've helped out with some adult education projects). It is deeply frustrating. You may find it rewarding, I found it a pain in the arse which kind of ruined it for me. Depends on your client(s), I guess. I've referred other clients of mine to different adult literacy classes and they've loved it. I wish I'd had one of those clients rather than stroppy teenagers who had no choice about attending.

(xpost again, Johnney OTM. I was an idealistic youngster when with Oxfam and refusing my bus fares. I've since been employed in a very well-paid capacity with a charity, but my being there led to even more revenue, some of which justified my wages, more of which went to helping people)

Ailsa, refusing your bus fares when you work at Oxfam is perfectly reasonable. When I was an Oxfam shop manager, most of my volunteers refused their travel expenses and they went back into the shop budget, which then allowed me to have shouting matches with my district manager and have my budget readjusted to put the money where I needed it more. Mind you, most of my (I know I should say "our", they weren't "my") volunteers wouldn't let the shop pay for milk or tea or any of the other things it pays for in order to keep running.

The two things that always bugged me when talking to people about working there were when they would complain about the high admin costs on one hand, and on the other hand laugh at me for working for a low salary. Can't have it both ways.

I have also been a literacy volunteer. It can be surprisingly unrewarding sometimes, depending on the student's reasons for being there.

This is what I'm contemplating doing:

http://www.nashvilleliteracy.org/volunteer_tutor.html

I'd just get paired up with one person. It's a 3 hour commitment a week. Does that seem like a lot to anyone else? It might cramp my "show up to work whenever" style. I'll probably get paired up with an immigrant, which is great. Anything I can do to make someone more comfortable and confident is A.O.K. with me. I think these folks come because they want to, and not because they have to. Ailsa, I can see how those snot-nosed teenagers could be deeply frustrating. I'm hoping I get a cute little old man, because, well, I develop crushes on little old men with great ease.

I volunteered in Oxfam for a year or so while I was unemployed a few years ago, I did charge the shop for milk & tea but that's because I was on the dole and totally broke. I did walk there rather than take the bus though! I enjoyed working there but now I'm not single and work full time there's just no time to do anything like that anymore, sadly.

I remember being shocked and disgruntled when I found out those chuggers work on commission. I naively thought they were volunteers too.

I was in an admin role with Oxfam. I applied for, and didn't get, a promotion to a paid role in a similar capacity (organising events and campaigns) - let's see how much altruism I could have taken when they said "here is £x,000 of the money you're helping to raise". What difference taking a salary and taking expenses. I mean, they could have justified a full-time paid organiser, but didn't need one because people like me were willing to do it for nothing.

I've also packed in jobs with charitable organisations on the principle that I hated the amount of money that was being thrown around to no good effect.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of charities do very worthwhile things. They are, however, businesses at the end of the day, and are answerable to a whole bunch of other people with regard to how they go about things, spend money, raise money and satisfy the foibles of the people throwing money at them. It saddens me.

I'm not sure what the point I'm trying to make is.

(xpost, Colonel, that's EXACTLY the kind of thing that hurts me in my charitable and kindly heart.)

I accept that charities have admin costs and I'm happy for them to employ people if they're doing something useful. It's the spending money preaching to the choir that bothers me.

This thread made me stop fannying about and actually RSVP to the volunteer training session.

Yeah, Noodle, I guess it's silly, but they've probably had some student who's done a market research placement finding out that lots of people increase their contribution to the charity if they get to see all the good their money is doing (and this outweighs the rightful cynicism of people who don't automatically think "charities = goodness and rightneousness all round at all times, hurrah" and go "wait, all you're doing is telling me stuff I already know and spending my money doing it").

Just last night I caught this story on the news, which made me glad that I donate to my local humane society rather than the "Canadian" SPCA.

DOES anyone consider tithing a charity? Does anyone even pay tithing here?