Only 27% of donations get to research with ICE Bucket.

[jeffc]

Peeps. your ice bucket donations too ALS, only small % gets there, better you donate to McMillan or similar org, see : www.politicalears.com/blog/ice-bucket-fraud-als-foundation-admits-that-73-of-donations-are-not-used-for-als-research/#.VAEA9a7p8-Q.twitter

[VapingBad]

I thought it was MNDA in the UK, ALS is for the USA

[dagl]

I put my donation in the pubs pet charity the air ambulance

[BrenD]

Please don't donate to Macmillan. I have in the past and have a lot of respect for their work, but they won't see another penny of my money after such appalling behavior.

Spending a small fortune on Google and Facebook ads in order to cheat a much smaller charity with less to spend on promo out of money shouldn't be acceptable in anyone's book. Google the challenge or look on Facebook and you see Macmillan and not MNDA. Perhaps MNDA should start to rival Macmillan's coffee mornings? Or just run them under exactly the same name and see how they like it?

Utterly, utterly despicable.

I tell a lie, the only way I'll ever donate to Macmillan again is if they pay every single penny they have earned from hijacking the challenge to MNDA, throw in a sizable donation on top and apologise for being such douches. But it's safe to say that won't happen.

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[lairey]

From what I understood BrenD, ALS started the ice bucket challenge in the US. MNDA, whilst for the same cause as ALS is a separate charity and Macmillan started it in the UK. I could be wrong though. However, the help and support my Mum and my family received from Macmillan means that they will always be a charity very close to my heart


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[BrenD]

Pointing out some of the salaries people from the charity are on aside, that article really is a load of sensationalist bollox.

The pie chart about how their money is spent is all people need to look at. Do they claim to be a research charity? So what's wrong with them spending 19% of their money last year on helping sufferers of ALS, especially in a country where a lot of people wouldn't be able to afford the sort of care we'd get for free over here? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Is raising awareness of an illness that wasn't on most people's radar before the challenge a bad thing? Not for me.

Oh and show me a charity that doesn't spend a percentage of donations on fundraising and admin costs.

I think that pie chart will look pretty different for next year!

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[BrenD]

Aug 30, 2014 5:50:30 GMT lairey said:

From what I understood BrenD, ALS started the ice bucket challenge in the US. MNDA, whilst for the same cause as ALS is a separate charity and Macmillan started it in the UK. I could be wrong though. However, the help and support my Mum and my family received from Macmillan means that they will always be a charity very close to my heart


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www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/macmillan-cancer-accused-of-hijacking-the-ice-bucket-challenge-9688310.html

The part about "failing to exploit #NoMakeupSelfie" is pretty telling. While they are right to point out that no charity owns the concept, waiting for it to take off and muscling in isn't cool. Just because you can do something really doesn't mean that you should do it.

As I said, I have a lot of respect for their work, they'll just have to go about it without my money, not that it will make any difference to them.

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[decoy]

not getting involved in this one apart to say that it is true that a lot of money given to charity disperses in admin and some are far worse than others

[BrenD]

Aug 30, 2014 6:10:41 GMT decoy said:

not getting involved in this one apart to say that it is true that a lot of money given to charity disperses in admin and some are far worse than others

I don't donate anywhere near as much to charity as I probably should do, but I'm starting to find myself doing things like buying pet food for local animal shelters. I don't know how they'll spend my money, but I have a fair idea what they'll do with a can of Whiskas

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[decoy]

i just donate my time to local charities
im quite good with my hands and can fix most things, help the aged is the main one and i loves some of the old cantankerous buggers lol
they will accept help near nuff every time if offered in the right way but they will not take cash ,even it the government owes it them
why do i do this
simples i hope someone will do it for me one day

[Perpetua]

Aug 30, 2014 6:19:10 GMT BrenD said:

I don't donate anywhere near as much to charity as I probably should do

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I don't know that any of us do BrenD . . . one simple way of making a modest donation if anyone uses Ebay, is to select a Charity that you would like to support and then on checkout add a amount of your choosing, register for Gift Aid and it's even more helpful.

pages.ebay.co.uk/ebayforcharity/otherways.html


Lots of littles can add up to alot for a deserving cause is my thinking.

[zeldamum]

Aug 30, 2014 6:25:23 GMT decoy said:

i just donate my time to local charities
im quite good with my hands and can fix most things, help the aged is the main one and i loves some of the old cantankerous buggers lol
they will accept help near nuff every time if offered in the right way but they will not take cash ,even it the government owes it them
why do i do this
simples i hope someone will do it for me one day

Well done, giving your time is far more valuable than money.

Yes charities need money to run, but they also need people who are willing to give up some of their free time. Everyone here knows I give up my free time to run the local Beaver Scouts, I also help at scouts when needed. Hopefully we can make a small difference to the children's lives and encourage them to give up their time to help others.

I won't be doing the ice bucket challenge as the cause close to my heart is CFS/ME, sufferers have enough problem with temperature control as it is and can feel freezing even in 40 degree heat, so for them tipping a bucket of ice water over themselves can cause them to be quite ill for days after.

[snow]

I work for a charity, and have worked for different charities for the majority of my working life, I've also voluntarily helped to set up a number of small and large charities and do regularly volunteer with a number of not for profit and charitable (not registered) organisations. I do get very frustrated by people who question the administration costs and salaries of charity employees - charities when they reach a certain size almost always need professional, qualified, experienced staff to run them, staff who have time and commitment and who are contracted to do a job of work. ALL charities rely on people giving their time freely and like my colleagues across the charity sector I work far far more hours than I get paid for, I value volunteers enormously however, a volunteer is exactly that a volunteer and they can and they do choose when they will do something and when they wont and sometimes that's at very short notice or no notice at all.

The amount of paperwork that a charity HAS to fulfill is beyond a joke, if its a registered charity there are huge amounts of legislation they have to comply with - its a minefield and changes often, moreover these days funding is becoming more and more restricted with all the cut backs to local government many third sector organisations are now being dumped on and having to step in and provide services that had previously been provided by the councils or NHS etc. third sector is now being asked to take on statutory services with vastly reduced budgets relying on volunteers to do jobs which were previously done by paid staff. We're expected to train the volunteers quite rightly but we are NOT given a budget to pay for the trainers, or they fund the service but NOT the administration but then expect us to send them reports and stats every 6 months that are pages and pages long that take an incredible amount of monitoring and collating all of which have to be done or else the funding gets pulled or cut - and actually even when we do comply the funding gets cut year on year. More and more they are expecting the work to be done for "free" and we see more and more people commenting on the salaries of paid charity workers the VAST majority of whom are paid a hell of a lot LESS than we could get in the private sector for people with our experience, abilities and qualifications. This is a red rag to a bull for me - its lose lose for charities which is why you wont see many of the big boys commenting on their chief execs salary as the general public only see xxxx grand a year and think - so thats where my £1 went is it? Time after time I see people saying they've got x Million in reserves not realising that it is a legal requirement to have those reserves, or that money not donated "the right way" is ring fenced and legally cannot be used for anything other than the purposed it was raised - forgive me I'm starting to rant lol

Volunteers tend not to volunteer to do admin work often they feel if they are going to be doing paperwork and admin they should be being paid to do it they would far rather be doing more "valuable" things and all power to them, some of the work third sector now does means that there are managers who are personally criminally liable if something goes wrong - not many people will take that on voluntarily. Donating to cover running costs and admin is just as valuable to that charity as the money donated for any other purpose - in some case more so as without paid workers doing the backroom stuff the charity cannot do the supporting stuff they were set up to do.

As for the big named charities who deal in millions of pounds and whose CEO's etc. get seemingly ridiculously huge salaries how much more would they get in the private sector running multi national for profit businesses? Should charities with a multimillion £ turnover have less qualified people running them when its our donated money they are responsible for? Do people honestly think Cancer research, RSPCA etc. should be run entirely by volunteers? Exactly where are they supposed to find them? These days its harder and harder to find enough volunteers as people need to be working and earning, people are working longer nowadays so the early retired who used to be a huge pool of volunteers is shrinking year on year. Low administration costs do not prove that a charity is better than one spending more on running costs the reverse is often the case, donations should be measured against what that charity actually achieves with the money. Admin usually includes systems for capturing learning, for improving the service and for reducing costs. It’s spending on those things which enables good performance and value for money, scrimping on them is often a false economy. Assessing a charity on its admin spend is easy to do because those figures have to be published but they bare very little relation to performance or accomplishment.

*and breath* I'm not for one moment saying that charities do not waste money I think that's inevitable I'm sure that theres many ways charities can cut back on things but when the heck do we have time to do the research? Or have the manpower to undertake it? even a simple thing like looking for cheaper utilities or photocopier paper or fecking bog rolls takes time and in the third sector time really DOES mean money and the time spent on that is admin!!!!!!! arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggggg

Sorry guys this isn't meant as a go at any individual here frankly this is a vent that got triggered by something said to me at an event I was at recently where I had no option but to bite my lip smile sweetly and walk away. Oh and I don't work for a major charity we are a very small organisation every single one of us works part time as we cannot afford to employ full time staff and even the director is part time.

[toots]

Well, snow, that's definitely put it all in perspective. A lot of things there to think about that probably is never given a single thought. Well done, and well put.

[Deleted]

guys I have something that may blow your vape into the stratosphere

You don't have to do the ice bucket challenge or anything weird to donate to charity - you can just donate!

I know this might be a shock to some people but check it out!

I have reasons for not donating to ALS on moral grounds (aborted foetuses/embryos whatever. Don't agree with stem cell research on them as I am pro life) but I do donate to other charities on a pretty regular basis and I don't have to boast about it or anything or even say how much I give or who to.

Tis just what I do.

Case closed