Having taken part in a recent supermarket collection for our local food bank, I understand how embarrassing it can be to say no when you are approached by a charity. I had it relatively easy because all I had to do was say hello to people, give them a leaflet indicating which products we urgently need and leave them to it. Some refused outright to take a leaflet, which is entirely fine in my book, others took a leaflet out of politeness and some generously made a donation. And the reason I am fine with people not donating is because there are numerous occasions on which I don’t make a donation when I am approached. My big mistake the other night when declining to make a donation to support a local hospice was to blurt out that I didn’t carry cash around with me, which made me extremely embarrassed when I saw they had a card reader with them. I had to find a different excuse/reason. If I’d just said a polite “No, thank you” I’d have felt less bad.
It is a fact that we can’t donate to each and every charity which approaches us. Some folk are in the position of not being able to contribute to any charities at all and while that’s not me – I suppose I could easily have managed a quid for the hospice – I feel there has to be a line somewhere.
I choose to give my time and money to food banks, something which I calculate to be worth around £1500 a year in terms of if I was being paid for my voluntary work and our weekly donations. That’s not me showing off about what a great and generous person I am – although obviously I am! – but an illustration of how I feel I am doing ‘my bit’ to help others. I know that you probably do your own thing, probably more privately, and frankly whether you do or you don’t, it’s none of my business.
In any ideal world, we wouldn’t need charities at all. But the issue is that charities exist to pay for things that we, the Great British Public, deem not worth paying for by taxation. Unimportant things like lifeboats, the air ambulance, transporting blood to hospitals and of course caring for ex service personnel. I have chosen to help people avoid food poverty, something else the government doesn’t give a toss about.
Some charities are better than others. I have worked for the British Red Cross, which is in effect a bloated multinational company with secretive financial arrangements (oh, and they’re a vile bunch of bullies to work for – have I mentioned that before?) and the brain injury charity Headway, which operates more as a business to benefit its managers than its clients and personally I would never give either of them any money. But that’s just my experience and yours may be different.
We’re going in town later on and inevitably there will be plenty of charities collecting alongside Bristol’s Christmas 50 Sheds of Shit and I’ll likely politely decline their requests too and I never, ever submit to the stand-in-front-of-you chuggers (charity muggers) who earn a decent wedge from whatever they collect.
So if you see me turning down the advances of Cancer research or the Alzheimer’s Society, it’s not that I am in favour of cancer and Alzheimer’s but in the end you have to decide where your charity money is going. And for now, mine’s going to help people eat.
