Richard, no your not, they are. Well at least your in the same world as I am. Ian S C

Hi Richard

My advice is don't listen to Chris Evans whilst eating your breakfast – it is likely to give you indigestion!

I don't really see the problem – items are being auctioned and will go to the highest bidder. The fact that there are those rich folk who can make high bids just means that lots of money is raised for the charity – which is, after all, the object of the exercise.

That you and I and the bulk of the population have worked hard and need to be careful about expenditure is a fact of life. Do you think you would be happier now if you had been in a position to bid £115,000 at the auction? It sounds to me that you have followed a pretty sound path through the jungle of life. My observation is that those with loads of money seem no happier than those with more modest resources. There are those, of course, with very little who must rely on help from others – for them it IS a different world.

Enough philosophy for today – off to the workshop!

Regards

Norman

Edited By NJH on 15/11/2012 10:51:26

By the sound of things the BBC might have to pull thier socks up, and sort them selves out a bit. Ian S C

This a lot more detailed but interesting

Another. Link

Edited By chris j on 15/11/2012 13:51:27

Hi,

I agree about bloated prices and the unsavoury wealth of some, especially given the recent revelations about the bank bonus regime and huge payoffs for failure. However much as I dislike Chris Evans and his blatantly ostentatious bragging about his wealth, I must say that at least he started from scratch, working at three jobs at a time while studying at school (his father died early and he helped to run the family shop amongst other work) and has since worked at what he is good at. So at least he worked hard to get ahead unlike others who manipulate our bank rates etc to earn huge bonuses for doing nothing or simply choosing the right parents.

Terry

The fact is that Evans and the B.B.C are businesses, and so are these so called Charities"look at the billions held in offshore banks, property and so called art treasures,only a tiny proportion of the interest goes to the "cause" that is how they can operate as charities. Sorry to bleat on, on here but the more I find out about so called "charities" the more I dislike what I learn!

If you want to know the truth about a charity's finances look their annual report and accounts up on the Charity Commission website. Salaries of staff earning over £40K will be declared along with all the information you might want to assess if they make good use of the money they get.

I am in a position to know the real facts about these issues, and quite happy to answer any questions on these issues at length, as long as it isn't viewed as irrelevant to the forums.

Neil

With respect, most of the big animal charities are drenched in donations because they are the most popular recipients of money on people's death. It's the smaller, less 'popular' charities that have to work at it. The fact is that there are many worthy causes out there that aren't television friendly that make a little money go a long way and arguably equally worthy as Children In Need. I'm guessing that the BBC will be working specially hard this year to make CIN a good PR exercise for them as well as raising money.

It is interesting that a Charity that deals with children, RSPCC has no homes or facilities for housing children and is just case working officers who attend and presumably pass on to the police any thing they find that is not right.

I would then presume that any monies donated go straight into the day to day running and wages, so very low overheads there.

Clive

A charity here in NZ for Epilepsy Reserch, collects rags, usually about 5% of the returns from sales goes to the foundation, but I believe they made a lose one year, so the foundation got billed for the difference. Ian S C

4. Went for a job with a large cancer charity as computer manager mentioned that they could benefit from a small upgrade, they said money no object. I turned the job down.

Unfortunately, except for very small groups run by volunteers, a charity needs to be run professionally an in a business like way. Being profligate for the sake of it is as bad for a charity as any business, but to do a good job, you need good people and good leadership. In many charities staff work for a fraction of what they could expect in the private sector or the public sector (although public sector pay, conditions and security aren't what they were). Many charity staff put in far more than their allotted hours, with no overtime, just time off in lieu that is rarely taken in full. Sometimes they have to make people take their holidays to comply with the working time directive – then staff do weekends and don't put them on their timesheets.

That said, it makes me really cross when people's committment is exploited because they are willing to work for low wages or on really poor conditions.

Charity trading subsidiaries are an interesting issue – sometimes they gift relatively little to the parent charity, but considerably further its aims and capacity through their work, additionaly they often through occupancy and management charges, make the parent charity's accomodation or administrative capacity financially viable. Charity accounting rules mean such payments cannot counted as gifts to the charity.

Similarly, it's easy to make the mistake of making do, rather than giving people the tools they need for the job. That includes providing decent, clean office accomodation, civilised loos and things like IT that works properly. Another example – a charity office over one winter where they couldn't reach the legal minimum temperature (supposed to be attained within an hour) by the end of the working day – with the heating on full. No-one went home early, even though it was their right to go. People complain about staff sitting on their hands – they were sitting on theirs to warm them up enough to use the computer keyboard. I have no issue with their move to better offices.

Charity regulation goes way beyond that applied to most businesses (many have three regulators, charity commission, companies house and often at least one other), bearing in mind that all the working and safety issues apply, often with extra child safety, volunteer issues and other regulations. Charity accounting is vastly more complex than business accounting, as individual grant funded activities are usually run as separate cost centres because of restricted fund issues. This requires skills and experience so that even the typical chartered accountant needs additional training before they can manage charity finances.

Ultimately, though, a charity should be judged by its success in addressing the issues it was set up to address.

Donors should ask what their gift will achieve, not worry exactly how it will be spent.

Neil