How to give
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Using charity shops & gift cataloguesIT MIGHT SEEM that charity shops are good for everyone: you donate your old stuff, the public can buy at discount prices, and the environment benefits because less junk fills up landfill sites. And all the while, the charity is taking in the money, and using it for good causes. |
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But not all is as it seems. In particular, using a charity shop doesn’t replace real giving. That's because surprisingly little money taken in by charity shops ever reaches the charity's intended beneficiaries. In the worst cases, the charity shop could even end up costing the charity money. Still, there are ways to get rid of your stuff and genuinely make the world a better place. We explain how. Charity ShopsIf you donate or you buy at charity shops, you might assume that you are doing your bit for charities. However, a surprisingly small amount of money given to charity shops ends up being used for good causes. The rest gets spent on overheads (rent, staff salaries and expenses etc.) and new charity shops. In fact, in our survey of almost sixty top charities with charity shops, we found that on average only 18p in every pound spent ends up going to charity.*These average figures hide a wide range of charity shop effectiveness. On the plus side, we found one or two very efficient charity shop chains which have almost no overhead costs, and so almost all the money you give to them ends up going to charity. However, a worrying minority of charity shops actually make a loss, therefore taking money away from good causes. We suggest that you think carefully before donating or buying from such charity shop chains. We are preparing a list of charity shop chains which have made a loss in the recent past, and will post it here shortly. If you are donating clothes, you may be surprised to hear that only about 10-20% of clothes donated ever hit the charity shops shelves. The rest are bundled up and sold on by the charity to ‘rag-men’. They sell it for export and the clothes eventually they end up being sold on the streets of poor countries. Arguably, this way of getting rid of clothes actually harms the poor countries, since it undercuts the local clothes-making industries. You might minimise the risk of this happening to your clothes by donating only top quality clothing directly to the charity shops. Avoid using clothes dumps, as these are sometimes serviced by rag-men directly, with the charity never seeing the goods. Also, try telling the charity shop workers what you paid for the garment originally, as this will help them price it appropriately and ensure it sells. Of course, charity shops have other purposes than raising money for the charity. They provide cheaper clothes and goods to the local community. They are environmentally friendly because they effectively recycle your stuff. They also act as an ever-present advertisement for the charity on the high-street, and many take a substantial number of cash donations every year. So the large tax-breaks and support from charity coffers enjoyed by charity shops is at least partially justified. We thinks it's generally good to use charity shops. Just don’t think of it as ‘doing your bit for charity’. You can find your local charity shop here. Charity Gift CataloguesMany Charities own trading companies. These run a wide range of trading activities, but many of them sell brand-new goods through gift catalogues or websites. It’s hard to be certain (because most charities’ accounts aren’t transparent enough to tell precisely what each of these trading companies is up to) but it seems that far more of the money you spend on such gifts goes to good causes. A review of almost over a hundred and fifty of such trading companies showed that they donated around a third of their income to charity. So it looks like buying gifts from these charity gift catalogues and websites could make more of a contribution to good causes than buying from charity shops.But we still think you shouldn't consider this doing your bit for charity. After all, it's still only a minority of your money that reaches the charity’s beneficiaries. What's more, some of these charity trading companies make a loss, though our survey hints this is rarer than loss-making charity shops. But it still means that your purchase could end up harming the charity. Become your own charity shopIf you want to make your donation of old stuff really count for charity, there is a way to make every penny count: cut out the middle-man and become your own charity shop. In other words, sell the item yourself, and simply donate the proceeds. That way, there’s no overhead cost to the charity – they aren’t paying any shop rent or any staff salaries to sell your stuff. And that means your donation could be a whopping 5 times more effective than it would be if you gave it through a charity shop.Ebay is one great way to sell your stuff for charity. If you commit to giving the profits to charity, they won't charge their usual seller’s fee. You can even choose to donate only part of the proceeds to charity, though that means that you’ll end up paying at least some of the seller’s fee. *Other surveys put the figure a little higher at 27p for every pound. Expect updated details shortly. |
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