I would like however to meet the fool who has come up with the latest idea of going door to door ‘begging’.

My first knock on the door came a few weeks ago. I was on my way out and the guy was polite and after explaining I was in a hurry he apologized and left.

Tonight it was The red cross who certainly made me cross!

I explained to him I was currently helping 4 other charities. This didn’t stop him carrying on like the salesmen who usually end up on Watchdog.

 After repeating I could not afford another donation he then tried the ol tug at the heartstrings routine saying it was for kids.

At this point feeling angry and upset I said no and shut the door.

This kind of cold calling is bang out of order. It will frighten elderly people who once darkness fails dont like to open the door.

It’s an immoral,ill thought out way to fund-raise and I for one would be interested how closely the charities scrutinise the people who do the canvassing as they are giving charities a bad name with their bully boy tactics.

Fella was very in your face and said “It’s ok for someone like me I can survive on the streets, a woman would be in danger”

Finally escaped feeling very shook up and vowing never to give to the charity if that was the kind of person they recruited.

I understand why charities do it but I feel there should be more stringent checks on the companies they use.

A few days after confirming my details I received a package which contained a thank you letter (comparing me to Emmeline Pankhurst and Nelson Mandela!!!!!),a huge picture of the world ,a pie chart and I don’t know what they were but cardboard squares I’m guessing are coasters.

So out of my £3.00 a month donation I am guessing about £1.99 was used this month to say thanks!

An A4 letter in a plain envelope would have been fine. The rest went in the bin and I was really annoyed the charity could be so irresponsible (nearly to the point of me cancelling my donation)

Another one today from The Red Cross, a free pen (thank you very much will add to the collection) and two roses cards. Completely random and again straight into the recycling.

Its insane that in this current economic climate charities will still be sending JUNK as a way of trying to get peoples donations.

How would I do it?

Notepad,letter saying this the most cost effective way of asking for help unless asked for no other letters will be sent and if you want a donation write (in biro as you have so many!!)  the website address.

Simple.

Normally I wouldnt say yes but I had heard of the charity unlike previous times , and I wanted to help a worthy charity (plus I felt sorry for the poor blighter and he was very friendly).

Yesterday I recieved a phonecall from the company following up my interest. At the time I couldnt talk to them so asked if they could ring back after 5pm.

True to their word they called and after much reassuring about giving my details over the phone we set it up.

At the moment I am waiting to start a new job so financially I can only do so much.

I explained this to the caller and he said that was fine and said there was a minimum donation.

Bracing myself for a I’m sorry I cant afford that conversation I was told the minimum was £3.00.

THANK YOU OXFAM FOR SEEING THE LIGHT!!! At this time of credit crunch and talks of recession people are tightening belts and having to cut back on some of their spending. This of course means a look at donations made to charities.

So Charities don’t be greedy. A couple of pounds a month is better than nothing. Scrap your high minimum donations and be grateful of the support you get!

In an article on the BBC website in January it is said the sale of Olympic land will reimburse some of the funds back to the lottery.

After the Olympics, profits from the sale of the Olympic Park land will initially reimburse London Development Agency (LDA) land acquisition costs and disturbance compensation costs, estimated at up to £650m. Further profit will be used to repay lottery funds.

A quote from Tessa Jowell says

Ms Jowell said the new funding plan “should give lottery distributors real confidence that the additional funding necessary for a successful Olympic and Paralympic Games will be repaid – providing them and the whole country with a further 2012 dividend”.

A quick look on Google shows that £1 in every £5 is going towards the Olympics. A quote from Janet Paraskeva, chair of the Olympic Lottery Distributor says ”It is only right that the Lottery Good Causes should share in the fruits of that investment.” 

OK its only my opinion but how exactly are charities supposed to survive until this glorious time when the cash cow arrives? After all four years in this current economic climate is a long time to wait.

Are the charities supposed to tell Mrs Smith at the moment she cant have free transport to the hospital for her treatment as without funding the charity cant afford to run the minibus they bought but in 4 years time she can go where she wants?.

Is Mr Jones supposed to tell his child the youth club he enjoys that gives him the confidence he never had and a place Mr Jones knew his child was safe and looked after will have to close but not to worry it will reopen in four years?

OK slightly over egging the pudding but in this current economic climate funding is going to be in seriously short supply when the credit crunch finally bites hard and effectively raiding the good causes fund  is disgraceful.

I know The Olympics will bring cash to The UK but how directly will it help charities?

Surely there should be some legislation to prevent this thing happening? After all there is the dream number game which is supposed to be funding the games. Surely if there isn’t enough then Camelot should take it out of its profits rather than raiding the cookie jar?

See the difference? I thank you.

At first I thought it was a normal letter requesting  funds for their latest project until a little piece of plastic fell out of the envelope.

 At first I thought it had just fallen out of the return envelope but as I read the letter it came apparent it was a little stroke of genius  by the fundraising team.

The letter was about raising money to help people blinded by cataracts. In the first line of the letter it tells you to hold it up to your eye and see what it is like to have cataracts.

A simple but effective way of getting the message home. Sometimes you can read these appeal letters and as much as you sympathise with the cause it can be hard to put yourself in that persons shoes. This little piece of plastic certainly does the trick to make you think more about how people cope with being blinded by this disease and how cheap and quickly it can be resolved.

Well done to the person who came up with this idea!!!

Basically it is a request for funds to help look after the many animals dumped through the festive period.

 Enclosed was a photo of one such case . A cat dumped in a box by a busy road.

What makes this campaign good is the fact they have obviously realised being the festive period peoples finances are tight (well mine are!!!) and the totals they are asking for a realistic (£3,£4 and£6). I’m sure when people see that they will be more than happy to donate.

Incidentally at the bottom of the letter is a note about the calender sent before Christmas .I know I am one person who raised concerns about how much money is used on these free gifts but according to the letter it didn’t cost much to produce so obviously the charity is aware people have queried this and this reassurance could possibly get those unsure of donating (due to worrying about masses of money on gifts) to donate.

Also enclosed with the latest campaign postcard (which I will complete later) was a questionnaire about which campaigns you were involved in and which issues the charity deals with and which ones you personally feel passionate about.

It also asks what kind of action you like to take (be it attending a campaign event or signing an Email petition.

I think this kind of simple questionnaire should be adopted by more charities. Us bloggers are lucky in that we have this place to leave feedback but if more charities did this they could focus on the issues that mattered to the people who support them ( I know not everyone would have the same opinion but the majority views could be adopted).

Just thought this was something worth mentioning.

On the front cover is a lovely grey pony so I flicked through it to see what its about.

In between the pages of happy smiling people and happy cases of successful rescues are some quite frankly horrific photographs of dead animals and their ‘alleged’ treatment.

Absolutely nowhere on the packaging or in the brochure did I see  any warnings about the contents possibly being upsetting to viewers.

This kind of propaganda really offends me. Ive seen many other animal rescue charities inform the public without this kind of shock tactics. It is (in my opinion ) unnecessary and counterproductive as I could not concentrate on the article because of the colour photos of dying animals or rotting carcasses.

I’m sure the charity means well but I feel it could make its points without being quite so graphic.

Plus one other point if they are for animal welfare maybe they should think about saving the environment and changing the plastic wrapping the magazine came in