[kall]

Is it just me, or is there something inherently wrong about the following?

A woman comes on TV every single ad break to make us all feel sorry for the poor children in Bangladesh, because the floods are coming...when there are currently large amounts of water washing our own countryfolk out of their homes?

Look lady, the floods may be coming in Bangladesh, but they are HERE NOW in New Zealand.

[Penny]

Its that whole, save your self before you save the world.

I hate those ads, they annoy me so much, Same with people coming to the door asking for money. Grr it annoys me too. Kids fundraising for their school thats fine. I remember doing that.

This lady came to my door the other night from Unicief, she said "i don't want any money" and ended up wanting me to Pledge $2.50 a week... in her words "not even a pie" It pissed me off that she kept going on about it even when I said no. I do try to be polite normally, but I just shut the door on her.

[kall]

You should have offered her 3/4 of a pie a week instead.

I just donated some money to the Flood Relief program through Foodtown.

You just have to tell them how much you want to donate, they add it to your bill. I guess that way it can all be accounted for.

Go on, shop at foodtown and empty your change into your hand. Give that to the flood relief program.

[Penny]

I donated at the warehouse the other day some warehouse dude was standing there with the tin. It a shame they haven't done one of the text help like they did for the other floods earlier in the year.

I heard on the radio today that after 24 hour 7 day a week pumping they only just got rid of the water on the plains.

[Sparklechick]

My company helped out the people who were flooded earlier this year. We had big boxes in all of our offices and people were asked to donate food, toys, clothes, bedding etc. We then sent it down in a big container for them. I haven't heard anything so far about helping out the Bay of Plenty.

I will donate to charities no problem but only if it's something I feel is deserving of it; breast cancer, starship hospital, the thing is though, some of the charities are getting greedy. I had two people approach me on the street one day asking if I'd donate to some fund about children and water (save the children from drowning?) something like that. I *had* to buy some sort of instant kiwi type tickets and the minimum I could buy was $20 .... I told them that I wouldn't donate $20 to them and that I didn't like children much anyway. If they had held out a bucket and asked for a donation they probably would have got one.

[Penny]

That was nice and helpful :-) I know a lady from Franklin collected spare bundles of hay to truck down to the farmers in need. But was told it was not wanted, after she had collected it, and so it has been sitting in a shed somewhere.

I hope they send it to the farmers in Whakatane area.

I hate it when people approach you on the street and want a certian amount. I would just like to donate whatever spare change I have.

I know that whenever we are selling Girl Guide biscuits we never say no to just donations, heaps of people just want to make donations, or let us keep the change.

[Sparklechick]

and the donations add up too. They might get 10 people declining to pay $20 for a ticket for their charity, however those 10 people may have given at least $2 ... so the charity missed out completely. More fool them.

[Penny]

yeah the donations are good, all extra for us... except the girls thought it was a tip for them to buy lollies with!

[trogg]

I always remember the old saying "charity begins at home"

Especially after I did a quote for the light fittings new World Vision offices and warehouse (WTF do they need a warehouse for? They are not collecting food here to send overseas) in Penrose.

Lets just say that it is no wonder they need all those donations

[edshuck]

There is a non profit growth industry in the US. But that is another issue. Consider fund raising.

Charity hires a fund raiser with a phone bank and a database and then the fundraiser keeps 90 to 95 percent of the collections.

When a fundraiser is involved here, there is never more than 40 percent going to the charity.

Here if requested the requestor had to supply data about how much went where. Fund raising, charity operations and so on.

Most fundraising in the US is moving to India or being done by prison work forces. The offshore outsourcing does not supply data. The prisoners just hang up.

? Does NZ have soliciting laws?

[KJM7]

Originally Posted by edshuck

There is a non profit growth industry in the US. But that is another issue. Consider fund raising.

Charity hires a fund raiser with a phone bank and a database and then the fundraiser keeps 90 to 95 percent of the collections.

When a fundraiser is involved here, there is never more than 40 percent going to the charity.

Here if requested the requestor had to supply data about how much went where. Fund raising, charity operations and so on.

Most fundraising in the US is moving to India or being done by prison work forces. The offshore outsourcing does not supply data. The prisoners just hang up.

? Does NZ have soliciting laws?

Yes, so true, and even my company ships all of our paperwork to India to be sorted and coiallated.....

[edshuck]

I need to be clear about this.

When I give money to a charity, I want the money to go for the work of the charity.

I expect that there is overhead.

To avoid being overhead, the fundraisers call themselves "up front providers" and their expense, "up front expense".

We have had a spate of "give us the title to your broken down car and we will use the money to help -_____".

There was a Russian rabbi in the western part of the city that was doing this to help Russian jewish immigrants". Yep, you guessed it. When the state cracked doen, the only Russian jew getting help was the rabbi. Just why he needed the approximately 3 million in assistance was not explained but his defense was that he was new to the country and did not know the customs.

Get a pool of money togeather and you will attract theives. Some will bring their own dipper and some will invent a new form of 'money pump'. There is the case of the United Crusade of the Bay Area. Charities sign up for this and when approved are given annual grants. The crusade keeps everyone from constantly asking for money. Once a year they ask for 1%. So this is big bucks.

The crusade director broke the data processing off into a for profit and then moved there to run it.

So far they have lost, they think, about 6 million.

Ye gads and little kittens, it is a mess.

[NiteFenix]

Isn't life just grand?

[busyness53]

The thing about some of those donation site are they put a price on them e.g $20.00
if you dial so and so, thats what pee's me off and the fact that there are some needy families here at home.