RSPCA till they asked me to up my standing order from £3 a month to £10. I was unemployed at the time so struggled to pay the £3. I was so angry that I cancelled my order and stopped paying them anything at all.
It does seem to be a common practice - badgering those who have already donated until apoplexy results. As does the passing on of information to other charities/NGOs/etc until the phone is constantly clogged with people drooling for money. I never ended up cutting off the funds, though - I tried to keep in mind that it wasn't the animals/starving foreigners/etc themselves ringing up , so why punish them ?
Oh , and I managed to cough up some for the WWF Tiger Adoption Program - I feel like vomiting and then murdering someone when I remember that the wild tiger population in 1900 was 100 000. In 2000 , it was 3,500 ...
I have never ever donated money to anything or anyone in my life and the reason is that swedish media over the years have been good at exposing organisations for putting the donated money in their own pockets. When that does not go on the donated money is used to buy weapons or other equipment making life even worse for the people that are suffering.
Doctors without borders may be the most hand on organisation that I can think of but it is very hard if not impossible to know where the money you donate actually end up. I just think they play on our guilty conscience and in Sweden we have had several campaigns by Save The Children that claimed that Sweden has indeed kids with no money that are starving. First off, I think children are not supposed to have money so naming it child poverty is just wrong as it is their parents that may be poor.
I urge people to help drill wells in Africa as the whole reason for the africans problems has to do with lack of water. We could fund the building of a water system down there if our governments used up less than one percent of our taxes to fund the building of it but the fact is those in power do not want to help Africa at all and anyone that believes they will should hang their heads in shame.
Save yourself and the loved ones around you, you cannot fix the world and it is time to grow up and smell the coffee. Florence Nightingale could not save herself but maybe you can!
---Urbanus
...Strangely enough, I also think saving Big Cats is really important.
Besides the WWF, last year I also donated to Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. It seems I'm following a theme, as to where my hard-earned money goes.
I have to say I don't understand that particular attitude at all . The Red Cross send copies of their yearly audits to all and sundry ( indeed , I think they're even available on the website). As far as transparency goes , what more is relevant ?
You're right in a sense - you probably won't ever know where every last cent goes ... but even if only 10/15/20% of the total ends up doing genuine good , isn't that better than nothing ?
If you once bought food that turned out to be spoilt/past its expiry date/etc. , would you stop buying food altogether ? I can't help but see that as analogous to the whole charity/NGO circumstance. So you ran into a rotten one ? Why is that a reason to spurn all ?
The depressing thing about donating money to organizations is that you just know that, even if it doesn't end up in someone's pocket, very little of it is going to be used the way you'd like it to. I mean, all the money I've given is probably just going to cover for someone's coffee breaks, or staples, or other essential functioning costs.
So yeah it relieves your conscience but it's a far from perfect solution.
I'd much rather take direct action and go shoot the people who kill hundreds of elephants in Africa myself, obviously, but that's a bit hard to combine with a full-time job...
I just feel there has to be higher standards when it comes to these types of organisations. It seems you don't mind it what you donated goes to other things than you wanted it to and if so then you will gladly donate money and don't really care. That is of course something you have a right to do but I feel that organisations that harbour criminals and criminal activity and that cheat should not be allowed to have accounts where donations can be made.
For many people organisations do what individuals cannot or will not do themselves. Your reasoning is frightening but also valid for most younger generations of today. You want to care and you do but your will to help is misdirected and shows a lack of creativity but also how lazy many people are today.
---Urbanus