You may find this an interesting indicator of when things go wrong and how covering-up occurs.
With all respect @diesel.patrick, you do realise that Choice is an Australian organisation, and as you are obviously located elsewhere, why are you bugging us with issues not related to Australia?
Sorry the last link was unnecessary other than to show that what happens with charities is not only true of a single country but I suspect common to many countries. It is useful to learn what is common and which countries do not have these problems. Possibly because of the way that the laws they have are more effective.
If I digress slightly more forgive me but the Netherlands solved the problem of badly finished new builds introduced a mandatory 5% retention for 6 months. An idea that could be usefully adopted by some other countries.
The point is businesses and practices are pretty global and I strongly believe that consumers benefit from seeing how to combat the bad. This also applies to charities.
P.S. As a boy I lived in Rosedale and went to East Lindfield Primary and was last in Sydney in 2019 .My grandparents lived in Melbourne…
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There is a seperate topic for that discussion. The suggestion is more likely to garner greater interest with a relevant post to:
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As an Australian, and how Not for Profits are registered in Australia. Charities are specifically separated from all other NFPs by purpose.
There may be concerns over governance of Charities in Australia, as distinct from all other NFPs. It might add more value to discuss how NFPs are intended to function in Australia, including registration, constitution etc, and whether a Charity.
The complications of comparisons with the UK or other nations can only be compounded by needing to distinguish the differences in their legislation and government.
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What goes on with similar organisation in other countries is not exactly germane, although being aware can serve as a warning of sorts.
Having just received the Choice Board update I’ll go on record that I am more than comfortable with how Choice is going. Having had the privilege to visit the lab and offices a few years ago, including meeting many staff in management and testing roles, there is clear evidence to me Choice has been and continues to take its mission and budgets quite seriously.
Could contributors now refrain from raising issues perceived at Which? or other international organisations, NGOs, NFPs, charities, or whatever, as
with recognition our systems, charities, and legislation have their own issues we best focus on.
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Does anyone know of a site where I can find a table showing the percentage of its funds a charity spends on fund raising? The daily telegraph did an article about this in 2011, but I’d like something up to date, and with more charities. I want to donate some money in my will, and it’s important to me to get the best bang for my buck. I’ve read the posts from Jan 2020 but they don’t help.
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Hi @alex.aldan,
I merged your query into this older topic that should provide the links to answer it
although this topic may be what you refer.
Unfortunately this is what there is, and there is nothing akin to a ‘league’ table or an easy to find ‘how much gets to end recipients’, partly because government believes that metric is too hard and too variable to put a percent on each for that, that would be comparable across all charities.
The best answer is to (unfortunately)
noting some charities, such as those owned/operated by religious orders, are exempt from any reporting.
And exempt from any donations from me.
As a general rule with me, a ‘charity’ that only wants my money, and especially wants to sign me up to an ongoing donation, gets nothing from me.
I prefer to donate my time and effort.
So charitable organizations that welcome people to help with their operations get my support. And once I know how they operate, potentially a will gift.
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Not to discourage you from pursuing the information that you seek, and not to downplay the importance of the efficiency of a charity (what percentage of donations actually makes it to beneficiaries) … surely a more significant consideration is … what areas of charitable activity are important to you??
Given the choice, say, between a charity for children with cancer and an environmental charity, I wouldn’t make the decision primarily on efficiency. I would be asking myself … how important to me personally are these respective activities?
You could think, well, I’ve already made that decision and I am just wanting to compare efficiencies between charities operating in the same area, which is fair enough, but then I guess for something like leaving a bequest in a will, the will may be executed decades in the future and “past performance is not a guarantee of future performance” i.e. efficiency may change over time.
Remember also that a charity that exists today may not exist by the time you die, so you would want to consider how you might handle that, preferably in conjunction with a lawyer if this is a non-trivial amount of money.
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Or make a donation to Choice as an organisation you can trust, that does a great job, and hopefully will still be around for a great many years to come.
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