Which UK charities use their donations most effectively?

Posted by Mentatreng@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 149 comments

It’s coming up to Christmas and I’m seeing/hearing ads for all sorts charities like gift aid and comic relief, but I’m wondering, which UK charities are actually using their donations effectively and helping the most people per pound given? Is this something that’s measured? Just curious to hear thoughts on this. Thank you.

Reply to Post

Reply

149 Comments

[-]

Indira-5452@reddit

This is a brilliant question. I personally would prefer to gift aid a charity that is able to stimulate more capital rather than an emergency fund that needs constant funds. This way in theory every penny you give keeps on giving as it's re-invested. This could be a coop for example or 0 or low interest loans to farmers and the capital is owned in part by the members as well. Or I would give to education scholarships. Giving to food banks will not solve poverty in itself although the the Trussell Trust are researching and providing data to help policies. You can look for ethical funds for example. Or you could look at climate change initiatives that help communities grow sustainably and become less dependent on outside help. The concept of self sufficiency applies to all communities

Reply

[-]

Bug_Parking@reddit

Captain Tom Foundation

Reply

[-]

Mysterious-Disk5691@reddit

A truly wonderful man, shame about the immoral/dishonest daughter and son in law,

Reply

[-]

cuccir@reddit

Efficiency doesn't necessarily equate to the best outcomes. If a charity spends its money to create more donations through marketing or awareness raising, then that can be better than just spending money immediately. Eg charity A gets £1000 and spends £900 on its problem. Charity B gets £1000 and spends £800 on its problem and £200 on marketing, which generates a further £500. Charity B ends up spending 80% of £1500 (£1200) while charity A, the more efficient one, spends only £900.

Reply

[-]

carlovski99@reddit

This is always the reasoning given for charities publicity spending, or salaries for their CEOs. The issue is if you assume there is only a certain amount of money available to go to charities (A bit of a stretch, but there must be a certain limit) then these charities are spending money, to take money away from other charities. Fine, if you think 'X' charity is the only/most important one. But a lot of charities overlap in what they are looking after. Case in point - Great Ormond Street Charity. They raise a lot of money (And do good work, don't get me wrong). But they are often competing against more local children's hospital charities who don't have the 'brand recognition'. I know a few people who work in the hospital who get very annoyed if they see a GOSH collection tin outside London.

Reply

[-]

Mfcarusio@reddit

Yeah, I used to be a club promoter, stand in the street try to get people into the nightclub. In the same place was a charity worker trying to get people to donate money. She would constantly have people ask her if she's getting paid. Yes, just above minimum wage. And people would use that as an excuse to show the charity must clearly not care or she clearly doesn't care about the issue. No one once asked if the nightclub was paying me to promote the club. If they paused for a second they'd assume that management made an assessment and figured that my salary was less than the amount of extra money I would bring in. Why the same calculation doesn't work for a charity, I don't know.

Reply

[-]

34Mbit@reddit

It's more complicated than that though. The difference between a charity mugger and a club promoter is I don't care how much, if any, profit the club makes from me. If they're offering £10 entry I can decide based entirely off the cost of £10 and the benefit of being in the nightclub whether it's worth it to me. They could spend £9 on a promoter and it doesn't matter to me, because those are hidden layers. To me it's £10, and a nightclub. With a charity, I **want** £10 to go to the dog, or orphan. If the business cost was known to be £1, then the proposition is "Is it worth £10 to know that an orphan received £9" - in most cases I would say yes. However "Is it worth £10 to know that £1 goes to an orphan" is not worth it to **me**. To illustrate it with a more extreme example, in a world without a particular charity an ill dog receives £0.00 and surely dies; if a new charity was formed that cost £99 to operate and deliver £1 to ill dogs, is it worth it? What if it was £99.99? At the end of the day, charities sell gratification/satisfaction to donors. If they charge £10 to deliver £1 of gratification then they can poke it.

Reply

[-]

Mfcarusio@reddit

But the answer is without them, we'd always be in the situation where the dog gets £0.00. Once the charity is set up, like every other business they will do what they can to maximise their profits. The difference is obviously what they do with their profit. If you think that they're not running their business in the most effective way I guess you can volunteer to be a charity mugger, work for a charity (at below industry standard wages because of their drive for efficiency) or just think to yourself, well they're not effective enough, I'll just not spend my money there. My annoyance is when people expect the charity mugger to be a volunteer whilst not being willing to do that themselves.

Reply

[-]

34Mbit@reddit

> But the answer is without them, we'd always be in the situation where the dog gets £0.00. Not necessarily. If a charity can offer me £9 of satisfaction for £10 then I, and most other rational consumers, would accept the offer and donate money. It's a simple consumer offer-acceptance proposition. If there were two charities; one delivered £9 to the good cause and another delivered £1 and burned the other £8 - which would the rational consumer choose? >If you think that they're not running their business in the most effective way I guess you can volunteer to be a charity mugger, work for a charity (at below industry standard wages because of their drive for efficiency) or just think to yourself, well they're not effective enough, I'll just not spend my money there. I'd argue it is not effective to have a high admin-to-charitable-activity rate, because that is not what consumers want from them.

Reply

[-]

Graham2405@reddit

If you think that of the £10 you donate £9 gets to those that need it, you need to look at some charities accounts. Many of them sit at around 60%. One of the better ones, The Red Cross, it's 74%.

Reply

[-]

34Mbit@reddit

It's an illustrative number for the purpose of discussion. I don't think charities literally give crisp £10 notes to dogs for them to chew on, either.

Reply

[-]

ThinTipsyThief@reddit

>With a charity, I want £10 to go to the dog, or orphan. If the business cost was known to be £1, then the proposition is "Is it worth £10 to know that an orphan received £9" - in most cases I would say yes. Then you don't understand what a charity is for. Give your tenner to a homeless person.

Reply

[-]

StreyyK@reddit

I remember Ricky Gervais making a big thing about this - think he's recycled the same comment on his stand-up and in one of his shows. A multi-millionaire suggesting all charity work should be voluntary is massively out-of-touch but for some reason people have bought into it.

Reply

[-]

keeponyrmeanside@reddit

I think you can scale it right up as well. People complain about big CEO or whatever salaries for charities - like there’s many people willing to run a multimillion pound company for free. And in my experience (at a much lower level than CEO) management positions are paid less than profit making companies. I looked into some charity positions recently as I was looking for a change in industry and the salaries were significantly lower, which put me off. Maybe that’s selfish, but I still have bills to pay.

Reply

[-]

FenderForever62@reddit

It also puts into perspective their pay when something bad happens - i worked at a charity where we had a bit of a scandal a few years back. Not this scenario exactly - but let’s say we paid a celebrity to promote our work but the celebrity then did something bad, and it turned out they did this bad thing before we hired them, and people pointed fingers at us and asked why we worked with them. Someone needs to be the face of the charity to say hey we messed up, this is how. That person could then risk losing their job because the charity needs to be seen to be making internal changes if donations drop or volunteers quit en mass. Yes, someone getting paid £150,000 at a charity is an immense amount of money. But guess what? They could quit and earn five times that at a private company. And then their salary is kept secret because only charities have to declare senior leadership wages. Someone has to be the overhead of a charity, and especially if it’s a national, well known charity, that’s a lot of pressure and a lot of people to answer to should something go wrong.

Reply

[-]

Luxury_Dressingown@reddit

People don't realise how much the charity sector does in this country. It props up large parts of the health and social care sector. You cannot run things at scale and complexity without paying people with the skills and expertise to take on the stress and responsibility. What works for the local foodbank (admirable operations that fully deserve and need support) won't work for pretty much anything larger or more complex. Take your local hospice. It's a charity, and it probably gets somewhere between a quarter to a third of its funding from the NHS (more likely a quarter). The rest it has to raise itself. Imagine you are running that hospice. To deliver hospice services, you need the work of doctors and nurses. They need to be paid. So do the cleaners and the cooks, and everyone else you need to run complex healthcare services. You need people in admin roles to make sure the work is organised, the staff is trained, and they get paid (IT, HR, finance, etc). You also need people to run major events (those fun runs, the winter ball, etc), and people in marketing and communications to generate support and funding. You might be able to run individual charity shops with volunteers, but you probably need someone who knows how to run a retail business to oversee them all. You need people who will put their necks on the line as the accountable person when the Care Quality Commission's inspectors visit - a bad inspection could result in that person's prosecution. Hospices have lots and lots of volunteers - normally more than paid staff. But if you think they could be run on a voluntary basis is delusional.

Reply

[-]

Mfcarusio@reddit

On top of the health sector I volunteer as a scout leader. The number of volunteers required to support children, growing them to being responsible young people, is a lot but it works so much within scouts. The difference in behaviour and attitude between the 14 year olds we volunteer with and the other 14 year olds in our local area is staggering. They're not perfect but they're all respectful, ambitious, interested in charity work confident young people. Without the volunteers giving up evenings, weekends etc these kids would be hanging outside the corner shops like the other 14 year olds, with nothing to do and just inevitably getting into trouble.

Reply

[-]

Graham2405@reddit

OK, but what if they spend £1,000 on advertising to raise £1,100. I heard one charity say that it was not an issue and they still gained £100 that they would otherwise not have gained.

Reply

[-]

cuccir@reddit

Yeah, there's a rate where it's worth questioning, of course. For that charity it's better, but maybe overall it's not. So it's good to ask the questions! But the point holds that efficiency in terms of ratio of income to spend on cause is not necessarily a great measure of whether a charity is using its money well.

Reply

[-]

sickiesusan@reddit

And how much are they paying all of those Marketing people? How much do they pay for the direct Mail shots? How much of a reserve are those charities sat on?

Reply

[-]

cuccir@reddit

If they pay less than the amount of money generated for their charity, then for their cause it is worthwhile. If these things didn't work, charities wouldn't regularly do them. It makes sense for a large charity to sit on reserves of cash, both (1) to generate income from investments/interest and (2) to cover potential future shortfalls in donations. If you are a large charity such as Cancer Research or Oxfam spening money on long-term research centres, global development or health schemes, you need to have a sensible reserve for continuity just as any business should.

Reply

[-]

sickiesusan@reddit

And protect their overhead expenditures (and therefore their salaries) too.

Reply

[-]

External-Bet-2375@reddit

But in the case of model A the general public still has £500 left they can give to another charity (or spend in their local economy), in the case of model B the public no longer has that £500 but it has only generated £400 of extra benefit from it, the £100 has disappeared into the marketers pocket.

Reply

[-]

cuccir@reddit

>But in the case of model A the general public still has £500 left they can give to another charity (or spend in their local economy), in the case of model B the public no longer has that £500 but it has only generated £400 of extra benefit from it, the £100 has disappeared into the marketers pocket. There's not a fixed amount that people have to spend on charity - people can be persuaded to spend more, to move other discretionary income into charity spending etc. In terms of relation to economy, the marketers are part of the economy, no? They have jobs, they pay taxes etc. There's no particular reason why that money might have otherwise been spent on the "local" economy, and most marketing in the UK will be by a firm based somewhere in this country.

Reply

[-]

External-Bet-2375@reddit

They are not a productive part of the economy though, marketers are just there to persuade people to transfer their spending from one item to another by using psychological techniques and asymmetrical access to information. They don't add any value to the overall economy.

Reply

[-]

Mentatreng@reddit (OP)

I didn't think about this, but so true. I guess another question to ask would then be how effective is each charity with their marketing budget.

Reply

[-]

cuccir@reddit

Yes, it's right to ask these questions and to consider the effectiveness of charities and hopefully the resources suggested in the other answers will help

Reply

[-]

Background_Cow_4449@reddit

You forget the most important item: both charities spend some money via a friend’s firm, which decrease a final ratio of efficiency.

Reply

[-]

bornleverpuller85@reddit

Local ones, our local food bank run out the church is amazing, see them out buying produce from local shops. Donating there helps everyone in the area. Look out for something similar

Reply

[-]

wildgoldchai@reddit

Yes foodbanks will appreciate money more than anything. They know what they need and it’s not another tin of kidney beans. They can also source goods at heavily discounted prices Also, if you do insist on donating food, fry to donate treat items. Everyone deserves to eat yummy food

Reply

[-]

tommycamino@reddit

Just to add to this great point, the Trussell Trust are also working to tackle the causes of food bank usage as well as the symptoms. A donation to them will have an extra impact

Reply

[-]

Inner_Inspection640@reddit

Do you have info on how they are trying to do this?

Reply

[-]

tommycamino@reddit

Yeah. Local food banks employ income maximisation staff and also community organisers to empower people. Nationally, they have a pretty big policy team. Like other charities they are trying to challenge the misconception that just throwing more food at people will fix poverty.

Reply

[-]

IITheDopeShowII@reddit

100% this. Look up effective altruism

Reply

[-]

SlightlyMithed123@reddit

Definitely, we have a ‘Community Depot’ in my town which acts as a food bank and also collects appliances/furniture and clothing to give to people in need. They post their exact costs on the local fb groups every year which is a nice transparent way of doing things.

Reply

[-]

itsa_m@reddit

Don't know about usage but here's a list of CEO pay. This might influence your decision. https://www.theguardian.com/society/salarysurvey/table/0,12406,1042677,00.html

Reply

[-]

AccidentalSirens@reddit

I agree with supporting local charities. But if you want to look at any registered charity, you can put it into [this page](https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/results/page/1/delta/20/keywords/Ethiopiaid) of the Gov.uk website. If you click on the charity's name on this page, it takes you to another page with pie charts of how they spend their money, how many employees they have and how many earn over £60k.

Reply

[-]

hauntingruby1975@reddit

Great website. Made me feel reassured of who I donated my money to this year (Andy’s Man Club)

Reply

[-]

Mindless_State@reddit

Just out of interest why would it interest you how many are earning over £60k?

Reply

[-]

AccidentalSirens@reddit

That wasn't my choice of statistic, it's what the website gives you. The charity I put in originally didn't have anyone who got over £60k. I just checked with a bigger charity and it lists the number of employees with total benefits of £60-70k, £70-80k etc until it runs out of employees. There's a discussion about how well paid charity employees should be elsewhere on this thread. Personally I believe people should be paid according to their expertise and usefulness to the charity. But the proportion of highly paid employees against income could ring alarm bells. If, for example, a charity had an annual income of £1 million and 1 employee on £800k, I would think of donating elsewhere.

Reply

[-]

grogipher@reddit

> at any registered charity, Just to say, since this is a UK sub, but that Charity Regulator is for England & Wales. For Scotland it is - https://www.oscr.org.uk/ For NI it is - https://www.charitycommissionni.org.uk/

Reply

[-]

AccidentalSirens@reddit

Thanks, hadn't noticed that.

Reply

[-]

Worldly_Science239@reddit

that's a really useful website. thanks for that. (I assume that ethiopiaid was one you were specifically looking at)

Reply

[-]

Tacklestiffener@reddit

I think any charity that advertises on TV is suspect (for me, I accept that). The idea of "please send £3 a month" has to be tempered by the fact that they need 7000 of us to contribute just to pay the CEO's salary. I contribute to little local charities where I can see what's happening. Local dog shelter, domestic violence shelter, and so on. I once gave cash to a local woman who regularly went to Africa to support an orphanage. She took my money to the local market and bought a goat and ten chickens.

Reply

[-]

Harrry-Otter@reddit

The CEO salary point always comes up, but would you really want a charity like Cancer Research which handles tens of millions in donations being overseen by well meaning but clueless Muriel who volunteers at the shop on weekends? Not to mention that having a good CEO will bring in far more in donations than whatever their salary will cost.

Reply

[-]

Tacklestiffener@reddit

How about retiring captains of industry are given a tax break on their pensions if they work for a charity for free.

Reply

[-]

Atreides2@reddit

No, these fuckers are the problem. They know jack shit about the charity world, parachute in with their connections and banking experience and expect to run a charity like a bank. Don't give a toss about the beneficiaries and end up destroying charity culture and effectiveness. They're awful and usually get the job over experienced, long term employees who do know their stuff, simply because they have connections, know the right people and have had impressive private sector careers. Would you let a retired banker be a headteacher at your kids school? Would you let a retired oil and gas executive head up children's services? Fuck no.

Reply

[-]

Harrry-Otter@reddit

Usually those sorts of people who are charitably inclined become trustees, where they can still use their expertise and contacts to help the charity but without the day-to-day stress of being a high level executive.

Reply

[-]

EpochRaine@reddit

This notion that charities should compete with the private sector for "the best" is a bullshit story peddled to ensure rife nepotism. Almost all the jobs at the strategic level in larger charities are filled by nepotism, not by advertising the role and looking for the best candidate for the role. They should be trying to attract people that want the charity to develop and grow, not just look good on their CV. This would involve advertising positions and looking for the best candidates from a wider pool of people, there will be excellent candidates at multiple wage points - there always is.

Reply

[-]

Harrry-Otter@reddit

I won’t deny the nepotism point, but how exactly would you get in these people? If you’re wanting to cast a wide net looking for people with experience managing entities with 8 figure turnovers, those people will almost all be in senior private sector roles and will be well paid for it. Many people will take a step down salary wise to work for a charity, but you aren’t going to many takers if they could get £300k in private business and the charity is offering £30k. You could get people who want the charity to grow, but the chances of them being any good are much lower. Just because someone feels very passionately about the Dogs Trust doesn’t mean they’ll be an effective administrator when they’re put in charge of a charity that employs hundreds and handles millions of donations. Hell there might even be an argument for having people less emotionally involved in the charity as they’d be more able to make tough objective decisions.

Reply

[-]

EpochRaine@reddit

A CEO doesn't manage the money. The CFO does. That isn't how large companies work. They might have a direct input into how budgets are spent, but I am betting Muriel at the shop has a greater insight into how the charity works, and what it needs to pivot to than the random CEO from a FinTech. Additionally, ANY CEO has support from staff below them, so again this is a strawman argument.

Reply

[-]

Harrry-Otter@reddit

I know how companies work. Even with a strong corporate team (who again, you’d need to pay for) I don’t think that Muriel would be the ideal person to be in an overall leadership position. Your average volunteer will have fuck all idea how a major charity works. At least Mr Fintech will understand the importance of things like corporate sponsorship, marketing, setting budgets and targets, maximising revenue streams and all that even if he’s never even owned a dog. If you put Muriel in charge you’d just end up getting completely bogged down in the minutiae of what music the shops play on the radio and how many coat hangers a customer can take before paying.

Reply

[-]

EpochRaine@reddit

>Your average volunteer will have fuck all idea how a major charity works. At least Mr Fintech will understand the importance of things like corporate sponsorship, marketing, setting budgets and targets, maximising revenue streams and all that even if he’s never even owned a dog. If you put Muriel in charge you’d just end up getting completely bogged down in the minutiae of what music the shops play on the radio and how many coat hangers a customer can take before paying. That is highly prejudiced and classist. Lots of people volunteer for different reasons. Assuming that the volunteers are moron's that have no clue, is precisely the kind of prejudicial attitude which limits the growth of this country. You don't know her background, qualifications or anything else. Your making an assumption (and a potentially incorrect one) on the basis of a role she has volunteered for. If we follow your pomposity, Mr FinTech will have no clue what's happening at the ground level because he will think he is above such work, and won't ever have even been on the shop floor. Consequently, he will make decisions based on reports that will have been massaged by underlings wanting to look good. He won't have a true understanding of the business. The kind of shit that happens now in corporations essentially, which is why British companies are lagging behind in particular. They tend to be the last to implement innovations, take advantage of new technology and fail to pivot when the market changes. The CEOs of Debenhams, etc. were all shit, that's why they all failed. Perhaps if they had listened to Muriel and the feedback they had been giving in their performance reviews about the problems on the shop floor, they would have had a bit of insight. Instead they sacked the poor cow, made more crap decisions and their companies went to the wall.

Reply

[-]

Harrry-Otter@reddit

It’s not classist to say most people don’t have a clue how major organisations run. She could’ve been anything from a maxillofacial surgeon to a tea lady, but unless she’s got experience in a leadership position of a similarly big organisation she’s likely to do a bad job at it. You might complain about donating to a charity that pays its CEO a lot, you’d probably complain a lot more when said charity has to pay millions in fines and lawsuits because the CEO doesn’t know what they’re doing. You’re right that upper management people shouldn’t be completely isolated from what goes on at the shop floor, but also that doesn’t mean that shop floor staff are the right ones to be making major strategic decisions. A lot of big companies do indeed send their executive teams to the shop floor to actually see the front, and they do take feedback from those working there regularly. Ultimately if what you were saying is true and CEO’s are all wrong and overpaid and the best wisdom comes from lower down the corporate pyramid, companies and charities would be doing it. Why pay someone £300k when apparently someone on minimum wage can do a better job?

Reply

[-]

EpochRaine@reddit

>Why pay someone £300k when apparently someone on minimum wage can do a better job? Why indeed?

Reply

[-]

Harrry-Otter@reddit

Well either it’s all one big conspiracy for the benefit of a small handful of highly paid executives, or it’s because organisations run more effectively when the leadership has knowledge and experience.

Reply

[-]

EpochRaine@reddit

>Well either it’s all one big conspiracy for the benefit of a small handful of highly paid executives, or it’s because organisations run more effectively when the leadership has knowledge and experience. Nailed it. Nepotism. They do run more effectively with knowledge and experience, unfortunately, at least in the UK, nepotism appears to prevail over people with knowledge and experience.

Reply

[-]

Luxury_Dressingown@reddit

Let's say Muriel did previously work in an exec role at PwC. There's probably a reason she doesn't do that anymore and now volunteers in her local charity shop. Most likely, she made her money and now has a low-stress life doing something that gives back to a cause she cares about. She is unlikely to want to give that up to take on another massively stressful exec role that will pay her waaay less than she previously made or even could make if she went back to an equally stressful exec role in the private sector.

Reply

[-]

EpochRaine@reddit

Quite possibly, I can certainly understand why she would want a stress-free life volunteering at the local charity shop, but to assume she is just a moron is classist racist bullshit. Her experience could very well be extremely valuable in providing insights into what is happening at the ground level. But no, because she volunteered for a shop role she is seen as an idiot with no skills that can barely operate the till, that isn't properly supported because the strategic team are morons, that decided Crapita (any similarities to any existing company is purely coincidental) were best placed to provide the kit, because the CEOs mate works there.

Reply

[-]

Douglesfield_@reddit

>there will be excellent candidates at multiple wage points - there always is. No there really isn't, ask any recruiter. No person with the experience necessary to run a big charity is going to be paid considerably less than what they would get in the private sector.

Reply

[-]

tdog666@reddit

Air Ambulance charities 100%

Reply

[-]

iwanttobeacavediver@reddit

This times 204876. Two of my own family have needed the air ambulance plus I've seen them attend many an accident and incident. I also know their operating costs (particularly fuel) are high so I don't mind putting a fiver or tenner in their buckets if I see one. Ditto for the RNLI- I'm a scuba diver so I might need them one day and being from a coastal area I know how important their work is. Plus seeing the big orange boat in the harbour is kind of cool.

Reply

[-]

Atreides2@reddit

Absolutely don't want to disagree, but these are two services which 100% should be standard, mainstream, taxpayer funded services. The fact they're charitable is a disgrace. They should be funded by the government, fully, properly, and in perpetuity.

Reply

[-]

mcintyresterlin@reddit

I try to focus my donations on smaller, local charities. Overhead is lower so more of each £ donated goes directly to helping people in need near me. Big names surely do good work but smaller groups really resonate more.

Reply

[-]

elom44@reddit

Love this question. All charities do good and I’m not shitting on anyone’s favourite one but only some can demonstrate how effective they are. How much ‘good’ can you get per £? Check out https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/best-charities/ and https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities for the most effective charities. I’m not aware of any effective altruism groups that focus on the UK though, simply because your money can do more good elsewhere. Again, not disrespecting your wish to give to charities that work in the UK. Against Malaria Foundation regularly tops the list of the worlds most effective charities and that is a UK charity (but not delivering the benefit here).

Reply

[-]

No_Background2329@reddit

Take a look at https://www.givewell.org/. Their only focus is to try and work out which charities get the best outcomes for the least money, based on either improving or saving the most lives.

Reply

[-]

spagbake5@reddit

All other comments are just guessing. Givewells whole purpose is to accurately assess which charities make the most impact per pound. As an example you can guide dog for 30k who will work for a few years, or treat cataract for people in Africa for 300 - one is for life the other is for 10-15 years.

Reply

[-]

Tanedra@reddit

A UK version of this is https://www.sogive.org - they assess the cost-effectiveness of donations.

Reply

[-]

SickPuppy01@reddit

It's normally local.charities who make the most use of their donations. There are some bigger ones who have next to no permanent staff that can get to the same ratio of donations and admin costs. You can check the charities donation to admin costs via their charity number. It's normally public information

Reply

[-]

lostrandomdude@reddit

So I have ADHD and go on random research binges. You have 2 choices if you want to donate to a charity that does not spend silly money on staff, CEO and legal costs. Local charities and some Muslim charities (only some as the really big ones like Islamic Relief and Muslim Aid are just as bad as Oxfam and Red Cross) My personal suggestion is to find a charity that is active in a field you care about and then look them up on the charities commission website to see where the money is spent

Reply

[-]

Douglesfield_@reddit

"Silly" money is spent on admin because they're massive organisations.

Reply

[-]

lostrandomdude@reddit

And paying CEOs 100k+

Reply

[-]

Douglesfield_@reddit

So what, they're massive organisations. What do you think they should be paid?

Reply

[-]

EpochRaine@reddit

>What do you think they should be paid? A reasonable wage, something along the lines of 4-5x the lowest paid worker. Not 100x. The real issue isn't about pay - it's about quality. Most strategic leadership positions are filled by nepotism, not by selection of the best candidate. That's why they continue to make shit decisions - they know if they fuck it up they can call a mate, and get another job fucking it up somewhere else. This problem isn't limited to charities, the same thing happens in the private sector - one of the reasons your shit is floating down the river, instead of digesting in a sewage treatment plant like it should be. Nepotism. The whole UK is built on nepotism. The rot of it infects almost every large organisation and it is getting worse.

Reply

[-]

Douglesfield_@reddit

>A reasonable wage, something along the lines of 4-5x the lowest paid worker. Not 100x. Min wage is £10.42 an hour X 37.5 = £390.75 a week X 52 = £20,319 a year X 5 = £101,595 So the execs on 100k are on a reasonable wage according to your standards. I understand your points about nepotism, however it's unlikely that every big charity has a CEO that got the job through nepotism, and it certainly shouldn't be cause to try to convince people not to give to them. They do good work, no matter what's going on at the executive level.

Reply

[-]

Klutzy_Cake5515@reddit

As opposed to what? You think the CEO role of a major corporation can be done be a part-time volunteer?

Reply

[-]

TrashbatLondon@reddit

This absolutely isn’t measured in any agreed sense. Anyone giving you a definitive answer in this thread is speaking through their own bias. Also worth mythbusting: big charities spend money *much* more efficiently than small local one (anomalies aside).

Reply

[-]

Formal-Rain@reddit

Most of them have chairmen on £80-100K Best to give to a small local charity.

Reply

[-]

Klutzy_Cake5515@reddit

Because a major charity with an untrained part-time CEO would be so effective.

Reply

[-]

EpochRaine@reddit

Given some of the decision making going on, yes quite possibly. Nepotism is rife at the strategic level and appointments are frequently made on the basis of who you know, not what you know. Same goes in the private sector - hence why your sewage is going into rivers and not being treated properly. Nepotism doesn't make for effective strategic leaders, as Debenhams et al found out when they all went under, due to poor decision making by their strategic leadership teams.

Reply

[-]

26326312@reddit

For me, I always like to give a bit to local charities when I see collections going on. But there are also a lot of the larger charities out there that do a lot of good, despite what people on Reddit seem to think about. I always donate to Dog's Trust when I can. I don't have a regular payment set up but I very often pop down to the local centre of I have any old towels or bedding and it's always well received. I'll stick a bit of cash in their collection pot as well. Someone on Reddit told me not to give to them because they already have enough money which is absolute bollocks. I can't imagine why someone would actively want to come online and try and dissuade anyone from giving to a charity that do as much good as they do. I got my dog from them 8 years ago and it was one of the best things I've ever done. I'm eternally grateful to them for rescuing and rehoming my best friend to me.

Reply

[-]

KaleidoscopicColours@reddit

>I always donate to Dog's Trust when I can. I worked for them for a while. Let's just say I've never seen so much wine put on expenses accounts; I was horrified. I wouldn't donate to them myself. I'd send my money to the other smaller dog charities who run on a shoestring.

Reply

[-]

hyper-casual@reddit

I also worked there for a bit. They spent £35k on a custom desk. Efficiency...

Reply

[-]

EpochRaine@reddit

>They spent £35k on a custom desk. Efficiency... Which one of their strategic leaders signed off on and thought was a good use of funds. One of my points elsewhere. Charities are paying huge sums of money to supposedly "the best leaders", because they compete with the private sector on wages, yet the decision making going on is average at best, poor at worst. That's aside from the nepotism occurring during recruitment at the strategic level.

Reply

[-]

cgknight1@reddit

>For me, I always like to give a bit to local charities when I see collections going on. Some of the worst for actual grift - under the control of a small number of people, generally weak controls.

Reply

[-]

stelliosuk@reddit

Captain Tom Foundation. It has effectively set up his daughter for life.

Reply

[-]

AcanthisittaFlaky385@reddit

To be frank, I would hold back that money and spend on electricity by donating CPU cycles to https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ if you've got a half decent CPU.

Reply

[-]

ImperialSyndrome@reddit

The measurement you're looking for effective altruism. Giving What We Can assess charities for that. The most effective charities tend to be those which are very specific in their aims because it requires lower overheads and staffing for research. The same is true for smaller charities that have less by way of administrative staff. https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/

Reply

[-]

heywhatwait@reddit

I have issues with the Salvation Army. Their majors receive a job for life, house for life and car for life. My money stays in my pocket whenever I hear them parping ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’.

Reply

[-]

Thejaybomb@reddit

They are also bad landlords, tenants living in a damp houses. Spent a huge amount on a flashy HQ, i wouldn’t give anything to these shit bags. Heard instances of them being less than charitable to gay people. Awful charity!

Reply

[-]

heywhatwait@reddit

Yup. Not very Christian at all. Say, let’s get downvoted together 😀.

Reply

[-]

Thejaybomb@reddit

Indeed!!!!

Reply

[-]

naturepeaked@reddit

Choose Love

Reply

[-]

Graham2405@reddit

I'd give directly to a small local charity. The larger ones spend a huge portion of income on running costs, you'd be shocked how little of your donation actually gets to those that need it. If you want to look into it, many of them publish accounts, or accounts can be acquired from companies house.

Reply

[-]

glassandshite@reddit

Local hospices would be my inclination

Reply

[-]

purrcthrowa@reddit

Please don't give any money to the Donkey Sanctuary. I have nothing against donkeys (unlike Shrek), and they are not a bad charity per-se, and for all I know may be run very efficiently, but they are absolutely loaded, and if you work out their income per donkey under their care, it's stratospheric. Have you ever seen a donkey shopping in Aldi or Lidl?

Reply

[-]

Lonely-Dragonfruit98@reddit

Second this. I think they do some great work and some of the stories you hear about the donkeys are heartbreaking. But I knew someone who worked for them in Sidmouth for many, many years, and they are absolutely minted. Every week there would be someone getting in touch who was the executor of a will and needed to send them some obscene sum of money.

Reply

[-]

theegrimrobe@reddit

small local ones, less overheads and less C level staff on inflated saleries

Reply

[-]

New-Fig8494@reddit

Absolutely none of them.

Reply

[-]

decentlyfair@reddit

I was a trustee of a small charity and never claimed expenses and worked for free too. Every penny was spent directly on the 'clients' apart from the website hosting. we struggled on for a few years and the founder sunk a lot of personal money into is (me too). the money spent was well used and did provide benefits but long term it was unsustainable. I donate 5% of my take home salary but to only tiny local charities that I know have no paid staff and is run completely on donations

Reply

[-]

SojournerInThisVale@reddit

Mary’s Meals. The CEO has a deliberately low wage (he’s also the founder). The charity feeds hungry children in poor countries in their school (to encourage them to come to school). It has a deliberately low cost model which utilises volunteers in programme countries. Thus, it costs £19.15 to feed a child in their school for one year. The model is genuinely revolutionary, and research from the UN and suchlike shows that school feeding has an incredibly transformative power in both the short and long term

Reply

[-]

highspeedtrain25@reddit

I donate to https://www.givefood.org.uk - it has a registry of UK food banks and uses the money to get them what they need the most.

Reply

[-]

Funky_monkey2026@reddit

I've worked for plenty charities and do a lot of the coding. If you want your money used effectively, give it to a specific fund within to that charity. General donations can be used for anything, ranging from Christmas parties to salary bonuses and paying electric bills etc. They all have enough to cover the basics. As above, it's pretty hard for a food bank to skim things off non-monetary donations.

Reply

[-]

Vivid-Berry-559@reddit

There’s an app called Bank The Food which will tell you what you local food bank are running low on and you can input what you’re going to bring to them. Spoiler alert, it’s not baked beans or pasta they’re lacking…

Reply

[-]

Neevie_@reddit

RSPB donate 90% of their income to protecting nature

Reply

[-]

Kind-County9767@reddit

Doesn't really help though. They could donate it on to a subsidiary charity which "supports nature" by spending 90% of that money on executive wages and 10% on bird seed and still claim that.

Reply

[-]

Sasspishus@reddit

But that's not what they do.

Reply

[-]

Chilton_Squid@reddit

Yes, but that's a very vague term. "Protecting nature" could mean "paying the National Insurance contributions of a bird specialist", it's purposely made to sound like they're helping birds find nice sticks.

Reply

[-]

AccidentalSirens@reddit

Serious question, what would you consider a legitimate use of RSPB funds? Because if I donated to the RSPB I would think that employing bird experts was a good use of my money. I'd expect to be funding projects, for example, to improve habitats for particular birds while not damaging the rest of the ecosystem, and I'd expect the people leading these projects to be knowledgeable. You can't expect people to do their main, skilled job for free.

Reply

[-]

Chilton_Squid@reddit

Not at all, I'm just answering in context of OP's question. Due to all those overheads, big companies simply cannot be as efficient as small charities.

Reply

[-]

Adamsoski@reddit

I don't think that's necessarily true at all. For your example, paying the NI contributions of a bird specialist doesn't make the charity any less efficient in any way. "Efficient" in this context means "amount of good produced into the world" for each pound donated, not "amount of money spent" for each pound donated.

Reply

[-]

MotherEastern3051@reddit

That's extremely simplistic. By efficient do you mean pnly direct conservation work? Arguably bigger impact could be that employed bird specialist working to campaign for better policy and legislation for the protection of habitats, which if successful would impact significantly more then one bird or one reserve. Often what people think is the kost efficient use of charity resources is the most simplistic and immediate help. While this is important, its often a sticking plaster and does not get to the root cause of the issues, ie making the case for protecting nature at policy level rather than just bits of damage control of what is already harmed.

Reply

[-]

Chilton_Squid@reddit

Yes, it extremely simplistic but I got the impression that's what OP wanted.

Reply

[-]

millimolli14@reddit

Most f the church ones are great, Salvation Army , homeless shelters

Reply

[-]

destria@reddit

My job is about evaluating the effectiveness of charitable interventions. What you're asking can't be answered in a singular way. What metrics will you use to determine effectiveness? Some people might look for lives saved per £ donated, others might care more about other wellbeing measures, so how do you define "people helped"? Is it strictly a raw number you care about, or do you care about the effectiveness of that help? For example, I could give £1 to 100 hungry people but it's only going to marginally help them to buy food, or I could give £100 to one person and that'll allow them to buy food for their family. Some problems are cheaper or more expensive to solve, some problems are simpler or more complex. Some problems affect a relatively small number of people but are nevertheless important. My approach to charity giving is to think about what causes I personally really care about. Then I seek out charities in that space, have a read of their impact reports, look for other evidence about their effectiveness, and make a decision based on that.

Reply

[-]

terrorbagoly@reddit

I also prefer small local charities, especially mountain rescue teams and search dog associations!

Reply

[-]

Beanruz@reddit

Not the British heart foundation My friends wife works for them trying to find a cure for diabetes. (She has a PhD and rubs a team) I've never seen such a gross waste of money in ny life 35days holidays plus double Bank Holiday (yes 16 days instead of 8) The she gets flown all over the world for conferences and takes her husband with her on company money. They get given a flat amount of money per week to spend when away. Even if they dont spend it... they don't have to repay it. They went to the states 3 times last year doing this. I'd never donate to them at all.i suspect all the big ones are like this tbh

Reply

[-]

Klutzy_Cake5515@reddit

Paypal to me, I'll withdraw the lot and dump it in front of the first homeless person I see. 100% efficiency.

Reply

[-]

Chilton_Squid@reddit

Small, local ones run by volunteers. None of the big ones will use £10 of your £10 fully, but a small local charity will absolutely do so. If they can afford to advertise, they don't really need small donations.

Reply

[-]

LoudComplex0692@reddit

>none of the big ones will use £10 of your £10 fully. What do you mean by this? That they might use some of it to pay their staff or something? And small local ones run by volunteers have much less oversight and can use their money for whatever they want. Source: run a small local charity where we do so what we say we’re doing with our money, but nobody checks. Also used to work for a national cancer charity where every penny was scrutinised and the employees were genuinely dedicated to their work. A huge part of the national charities income came from public philanthropy - I.E. those £10 donations that all add up to a significant amount and generated public support.

Reply

[-]

Chilton_Squid@reddit

What I mean is that the very nature of running a charity as a massive corporation has its benefits and its drawbacks. On the upside, they can have the power to make real changes to the world on a large scale, get laws changed, lobby MPs to get issues discussed, that kind of thing. On the downside, they have to have large numbers of staff on proper salaries, who all need holiday pay and sick pay and pensions and National Insurance contributions, etc etc. Small charities however, are light and efficient and quick on their feet - if someone gives them a tenner for their Christmas appeal, then 100% of that tenner goes on buying and wrapping a present. Both types of charities are needed and have their place, I'm not saying either is better or worse than the other. But the ones I like and donate to are small local ones run by amazing people who will take everything you give them and directly put it towards their cause.

Reply

[-]

LoudComplex0692@reddit

I get what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that using donations to pay staff proper salaries isn’t putting that money towards the cause or a “downside” of larger charities.

Reply

[-]

Chilton_Squid@reddit

No, but I was answering OP's question

Reply

[-]

LoudComplex0692@reddit

With false information…

Reply

[-]

Chilton_Squid@reddit

If you think that then I don't think you've fully understood

Reply

[-]

Worldly_Science239@reddit

"If they can afford to advertise, they don't really need small donations." I think that's too simplistic a statement. There'll always be cases that prove your point, but it depends on the charity and the aims of the charity.

Reply

[-]

hoganpaul@reddit

If a charity can afford to advertise on TV then it's a business. I give local and/or directly to people in need.

Reply

[-]

Farscape_rocked@reddit

Christians Against Poverty (CAP) offer free debt advice to help you restructure and reduce your debts with the aim of getting you debt free. They do other stuff as well (job clubs, life skills courses, etc) but that's their main thing. Martin Lewis says they're great.

Reply

[-]

fletch3059@reddit

As a militant atheist who doesn't like religious charities I will strongly defend CAP. They really do support people and don't use the Christians part of their name to try to convert people or discriminate against non Christains. I had professional involvement with them years ago and was impressed.

Reply

[-]

SpaceMonkeyAttack@reddit

I donate to GiveDirectly. All they do is take your money and give it to poor people, so they have very low overheads. This kind of cash-injection into local economies often outperforms top-down infrastructure projects. Recipients can decide what they need most, like repairs to their home, a vehicle, to start a business, medicine, training, or whatever. That money is usually being spent locally, so it benefits their neighbours as well. Sometimes, the equivalent of a couple of hundred pounds is a life-changing amount of money.

Reply

[-]

EmergencyTree5400@reddit

[https://www.givedirectly.org/](https://www.givedirectly.org/) I first heard about it on this podcast: [Giving Away Cash Makes You Happy... and Transforms Lives | The Happiness Lab | Dr. Laurie Santos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paeEiJQIfHY) >Former British politician Rory Stewart used to manage billions of dollars in aid money - and like other international donors thought poor people needed to be told what to do with charitable gifts. He was shocked how effective no-strings-attached cash turned out to be, and now promotes "giving directly". He was also surprised how good giving away even small amounts of money made him feel.

Reply

[-]

Lower_Time5509@reddit

Something like a shoebox appeal or food banks to a local charity. I'd like to think instead of giving money, but something tangible like canned foods would actually go to help those who need it.

Reply

[-]

Hypselospinus@reddit

Always go local. That way you can actually see where your donations are gonna be spent. Going with a big organisation, you just have no idea if the 20 quid you donate is going to, say, go towards buying food for the homeless or go towards the CEO's new Lamborghini.

Reply

[-]

LoudComplex0692@reddit

This is a very simplistic view. There’s actually very little oversight on small local charities so while most are doing what they say there’s nothing to prove that they are unless you’re following it up yourself. I run a small local charity and we’re very transparent - publish all our donations and outgoings etc each quarter, but there’s no obligation to do that and our accountant just checks we have receipts for things at the end of each year. I’m not saying do or don’t donate to big national or little local charities, but the best thing to do is look into organisations individually. You can check what their ceo is paid, where proportions of donations go to, etc.

Reply

[-]

gurneyguy101@reddit

Try the website givewell! It’s designed for this type of thing, though not exclusive to the uk

Reply

[-]

RedbeardRagnar@reddit

Scottish Mountain Rescue for me

Reply

[-]

fluffton@reddit

Local ones and the prospect hospice. Any charity that you see running advertising campaigns are more of a company than a charity. You'll be funding their next advert in no time.

Reply

[-]

vickleroo@reddit

This might be helpful. Charities with strong evidence https://www.goodgivinglist.org/all-recommended-charities/

Reply

[-]

Goochregent@reddit

Local animal rescues and food banks. The bigger charities are a lazy and convenient choice but so much of the money is leeched into admin costs and exec pay.

Reply

[-]

tastefullydone@reddit

[Givewell](https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities) is a charity evaluator that looks into this sort of stuff. At the moment their top recommendations are: [Malaria Consortium](https://www.givewell.org/charities/malaria-consortium) - providing medication to prevent malaria [Against Malaria Foundation](https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf) - providing insecticide-treated bed nets to prevent malaria [Helen Keller International’s Vitamin A Supplementation Program](https://www.givewell.org/charities/helen-keller-international) [New Incentives](https://www.givewell.org/charities/new-incentives) - offering cash incentives for getting children vaccinated in Nigeria All of these charities operate abroad - that’s mostly because it’s cheaper to help people in low income countries than people in higher income countries, so if you’re going in with an effectiveness mindset that’s likely where it will lead. Thanks so much for your generosity and wanting to help people effectively!

Reply

[-]

Isgortio@reddit

I recently donated some clothes to the local homeless shelter and they were really grateful because they have people in the shelter that can use the clothes. I even managed to give them some frying pans (a year old but doesn't work with induction hobs) and they said that'd be really good for when they get people new homes. I think knowing it's actually being used is better than putting it in a charity bin and hoping it doesn't just all get binned.

Reply

[-]

wallTextures@reddit

We've always given to Julian Trust and the BHF.

Reply

[-]

terryjuicelawson@reddit

It is hard to tell as even if a charity did give away a large amount of its income, where is it *actually* going. For years money was being chucked at Africa which rarely got to people in actual need. And giving them food meant people producing it and trying to sell it locally were screwed. Took a while for them to realise that building wells or funding schools was a better approach.

Reply

[-]

20namesandcounting@reddit

I tend to give to two small local charities one that runs a soup kitchen and one that's a wildlife rescue. Both have amazon wish lists for supplies they need so I can just pick some bits and send them directly to them.

Reply

[-]

KaleidoscopicColours@reddit

I won't tell you which charities to donate to - I don't know what your interests are. What I will do, however, is tell you that [Doing Good Better](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doing-Good-Better-Effective-Difference/dp/1783350512/ref=asc_df_1783350512/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=311043780415&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5861491286462807014&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045370&hvtargid=pla-471330494535&psc=1&mcid=77fa01f4e9c43075824ea6a4e02edf97&th=1&psc=1&ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=4cb3d395-a1b0-4daf-995c-967a897d0cf1) by William Macaskill is a very interesting read. I'll also caution against the Christmas shoebox appeals, the most well known of which, [Operation Christmas Child][https://humanists.uk/2023/11/16/humanists-uk-cautions-parents-to-exercise-caution-with-operation-christmas-child], is used as a tool to try and convert non Christian children, by a church with well documented racist, homophobic and anti-choice views.

Reply

[-]

Hot_Success_7986@reddit

[Depher Uk](https://burnley.co.uk/depher-founder-i-was-born-in-liverpool-but-burnley-has-made-me/) Depher UK great charity, his work amazes me

Reply

[-]

BastardsCryinInnit@reddit

[DEPHER](https://www.depher.com/). Started off as a company battling rip off plumbers and gas engineers who scam the elderly, and now they're a charity still doing that, but also fixing, repairing, upgrading boilers, taps, toilets, bathrooms etc for free or next to nothing as well as providing food for families, Christmas presents etc. They do due diligence on all the people they assist and the money really is the most "direct to source" charity I've seen.

Reply

[-]

crazycatchemist1@reddit

There are actually people who have made an index of effective charities, where charities can apply for grants based on having proved that what they do works and that they're using money effectively. I think they're called GiveWell. Maybe worth looking into who they recommend?

Reply

[-]

Fando1234@reddit

I can’t give you any metrics behind the efficacy of this one. But I volunteer for a mental health charity called Shout. It’s basically a free messaging service for people in crisis. The training to volunteer takes weeks, and we’re almost always understaffed on shifts. It also does a lot of immediate, tangible good, as there are a lot of people extremely distressed out there right now. Many of whom are considering ending their lives, and really need that lifeline of someone anonymous to speak to. I don’t know if it’s the single most effective way, but it’s certainly a very good charity to donate to. Also… if you look up effective altruism that can help you determine objectively best ways to spend your money. And finally, Give Directly is meant to be very efficient at helping.

Reply