[Closed] Children In Need chartiy auction

The whole thing makes me want to puke with its condescension, descriptions of people as "brave" or "sufferers" and its non inclusive ethos.

Piss on pity

I can't believe some people ^^^^

One of the biggest bands in the U.K. have donated a free gig to the highest bidder, someone has offered to give £475,000 for that which will go to children who need it most.

I wish I could join in, I would have loved to drive all Chris Evans Ferraris which they auctioned off in previous years. Great idea and may it continue.

It's no different to a school auction of promises, just more £££££s!

If the rich want to be parted with their money for charity, then that's fine by me.

All charities have their issues with wasted money, but Children in Need are one of the better ones.

I'm with Robdob.

Only time I used to listen to R2 when I commuted. I remember some fella paying £100k to take his family to see the northern lights with Ray Mears. Absolutely brilliant.

Cash goes to children and families who need it. I'm really struggling to see the negatives!

I'd love to have the cash, thanks for the PSA, I'll listen later and make sure I donate.

I can't believe some people ^^^^

One of the biggest bands in the U.K. have donated a free gig to the highest bidder, someone has offered to give [s]£475,000[/s] £1,100000.00 ( 😯 )for that which will go to children who need it most.

Completely agree.

OP, it's their money and they can do whatever they want with it - the fact that they decide to give a chunk of it to a good cause should be applauded.

You could/can win some of the same stuff with just a £5 text if you could be arsed.

We have a day of pandering to the very richest in society

I know it's all for a good cause, and the poor celebrities are giving up their precious time etc. etc. however the sceptic in me wonders how much of these charitable donations are paid through a company & deducted from their tax liability... wonder if anyone's ever submitted an FOI request to see where the % of donations come from - personal or business accounts?

Obviously if I ran a company that could bung half a million quid to charity instead of the tax man, i'd certainly be tempted to bid for the private Take That gig & have them play to absolutely nobody in a rancid barn.

Also, being preached to by rich celebrities - many of whom employ all manner of financial jiggery pokery to avoid paying as much tax as possible - to give generously gets slightly tired after a while.

however the sceptic in me wonders how much of these charitable donations are paid through a company & deducted from their tax liability...

£1.1m directly to Children in Need will probably be better spent that £1.1m to the taxman.

£1.1m directly to Children in Need will probably be better spent that £1.1m to the taxman.

Round my way things like hospitals and schools are funded from general taxation.

What can be wrong with raising money for Charity? I think it's very impressive personally, Chris Evans must have raised millions over the years for CiN.

And there are ballots for lesser mortals to grab a seat etc for only a £5 bid.

Round my way things like hospitals and schools are funded from general taxation.

Don't worry, that won't be for long if Jeremy Hunt gets his way.

the fact that they decide to give a chunk of it to a good cause should be applauded.

+10

But perhaps the auction bit has run its course?

So you're suggesting they should raise less money for CiN? Is that really what you want?

In all these things I think a good test is 'Is the world a better place for it?' and I'd say that raising a few million for CIN vs annoying a few moaners for one week, then the answer is yes (by a mile).

Round my way things like hospitals and schools are funded from general taxation.

...and the specialist care side of things have generally been provided by charities. The NHS can't be all things to all people, charities have to fill in the gaps, and were doing so long before the NHS existed.

Flaperon
[i]£1.1m directly to Children in Need will probably be better spent that £1.1m to the taxman.[/i]
Round my way things like hospitals and schools are funded from general taxation.

Exactly my point - what would happen if everyone who could, simply donated all their taxable income to the charity of their choice instead of into general taxation & get their name in lights and a luxury weekend break for being so "generous" with money that might otherwise been allocated to a new children's hospital, cycling infrastructure (stop laughing) or palliative care facility?

Although, granted - 1.1m to children in need probably would be better spent than the governments' latest vanity project for megacity 1... 😆

Oh Jesus Christ!!

Talk about Bah, Humbug!!

I will admit to being mildly envious of those who have the 'spare' money to enable them to give hundreds of thousands to charity and end up getting to go on these 'money can't buy' experiences!
I'd love to be in a position to spank that amount of cash for a good cause & get some kind of 'unique-ish' event out of it.

When they have had the winners of the car auction things in the past on the air, they have all come across as really nice people.

Long may it continue, in my opinion. As above, Chris Evans must have raised millions over the years for Children in Need. Like him or loathe him, he is one of those people who can get things done.
I think car-fest has been going now for over 5 years & all the money for that goes to Children in Need too.

Exactly my point - what would happen if everyone who could, simply donated all their taxable income to the charity of their choice instead of into general taxation

They'd just change the tax rules to accommodate. It's a complete non issue.

How anyone can moan about raising money for Children in Need is beyond me......

Exactly my point - what would happen if everyone who could, simply donated all their taxable income to the charity of their choice instead of into general taxation & get their name in lights and a luxury weekend break for being so "generous" with money that might otherwise been allocated to a new children's hospital, cycling infrastructure (stop laughing) or palliative care facility?

Yep, he's made a huge contribution to society, all off his own back with no need to do so. Whereas all the wingers on this thread have done what exactly, found yet another excuse not to help someone else and only take care of themselves?

the-muffin-man

...and the specialist care side of things have generally been provided by charities. The NHS can't be all things to all people, charities have to fill in the gaps, and were doing so long before the NHS existed.

Yep, totally agree - i'm not saying charities shouldn't get donations, they need everythign they get - just that some people are being heralded as saints when they're not actually putting their hands in their pockets, it's money they wouldn't have had anyway - just that now a charity (a very good one) has it instead of the government. It's the hard up 72 year old from the arse end of some council estate that's given her last fiver instead of putting the heating on that should be given a luxury weekend away & waited on hand & foot by a michelin starred team of chefs.

J

[IMG] [/IMG]

😉

footflaps
They'd just change the tax rules to accommodate. It's a complete non issue.

That's a fair point, sadly I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen

How anyone can moan about raising money for Children in Need is beyond me......

I'm certainly not moaning about raising money for children in need, just the hero status attributed to the completely wrong set of people, it's no skin off their noses - admittedly they do raise a fair chunk of cash, so fair play for that.

J

I know what the 'knockers' are talking about.

I'm glad it exists; I'm happy Sir Whatshisname always drops a fortune on something every year for it and it raises a lot of money.

But... I must admit when it's on, I don't listen, call it envy but in years gone by I've been listening at times when I'm wondering if we're going to get to the next payday or worse when the next pay day is coming and when you're dealing with that, it can sound like a lot of Millionaires having a pissing contest and a bit of a circle jerk of self-congratulation.
So I give R2 a miss for a week or however long it’s on.

just the hero status attributed to the completely wrong set of people,

You mean they get their name mentioned on R2 a few times on the breakfast show?

And by completely wrong, you mean people who are choosing to give vast sums of money to charity?

Seems like a very, very good deal to me, in exchange for not very much, a Charity gets a huge cash injection it wouldn't otherwise see. Would you rather they spent it on yachts and gave nothing to Charity?

it can sound like a lot of Millionaires having a pissing contest and a bit of a circle jerk of self-congratulation.

I don't disagree, but if that's the price for raising a few million for Charity, I'm quite happy with it.

I don't listen to the stuff on Radio 2, Chris Evans breakfast show is crap and i'll watch a bit of the telly stuff while the kids are up but then turn over to something good when they've gone to bed.

But I can afford to give £10 or £20 so I will, and if millionaire tax dodgers can find a way of getting extra millions to good causes then great. Takes it out of the hands of some other rich nob in puts it to good use.

IMO it's the total at the end thats important not how it got there or who it came from.

however the sceptic in me wonders how much of these charitable donations are paid through a company & deducted from their tax liability...

You can't make charitable donations instead of paying tax - donations just reduce your taxable profit. Making a donation of £100 would only reduce a company's tax liability by £20.

Government (both national and local) are massive funders of the charity sector - either through grant making or by contracting services from charities. So so a company giving directy to charity results not only in a larger sum going to a good cause (instead of 80% to the shareholders and 20% to the government) but it also either offsets or adds value to expenditure that government is making themselves

so

£1.1m directly to Children in Need will probably be better spent that £1.1m to the taxman.

Chris Evans must have raised millions over the years for Children in Need. Like him or loathe him, he is one of those people who can get things done.

Now who else did we used to say something rather similar about? 🙂

footflaps
And by completely wrong, you mean people who are choosing to give vast sums of money to charity?

Yes. As I already said... who gives "more" & should be praised for their efforts, some millionaire chucking a few grand in instead of that 1960-odd chateau margeaux they [i]really[/i] wanted or the old biddy who has just had her 'leccy cut off as her last fiver went in instead of buying a powercard?

Who most deserves a commendation for their donation?

Obviously sentiment doesn't add £££££ to the total, but it's become a complete cock-waving contest & that little picture up there sums it up for a lot of people.

in exchange for not very much, a Charity gets a huge cash injection it wouldn't otherwise see. [b]Would you rather they spent it on yachts and gave nothing to Charity?[/b]

Of course not - that's a rather mean spirited insinuation, my point was if the country's rich have to be swayed into donating their spare wads of cash to charity by the associated high value "perks" of said donations, it leaves a slight bitter edge to the whole transaction - like if they wouldn't bung a few quid into the poppy appeal tin if there weren't any poppies left...

maccruiskeen - thanks for the clarification on the company tax charitable donations thing, wasn't sure what the limitations were.

J

I think these people on the CE show would probably give a lot to charity anyway, they aren't any names I've heard of and a fair amount are anonymous. There certainly isn't any mention of them apart from their name and that's only during the auction. So they bid, possibly get their name mentioned once or twice during the show then that's it. Hardly willy waving.

Christ there really are some miserable t***s (talking utter bollocks) out there! I bet you wouldn't be quite so vocal if it was your children benefitting from the charities that CiN supports.

maccruiskeen - thanks for the clarification on the company tax charitable donations thing, wasn't sure what the limitations were.

my figure above is out of date - government funding to the 3rd sector has fallen by 3bn or more over the last few years

the politics of envy.. i ll admit to been a pit miffed when i hear jeremy donated 35k for a ride in some ferraris on a grand day out but hey thats the way of the world somewhere they ll be somebody who wishes they had a mrs two kids and would even be happy living near rochdale so i smile be just a bit jealous and let em spend their money.

to those knocking it i ll ask two questions.. do you ring up the tax folks every month and say i d like to pay a bit more towards the nhs this month please, or do you keep stum. and secondly how can i reduce my overall tax bill and thus increase my disposable income by
donating money

There are, of course, ballots to win the s****y prizes for a fiver. Not perfect, but it is intended to raise the most money it can.

Worth remembering that most of the people involved in this annual back slapping session have gotten rich on licence payers coin - one of the most unfair, vicious and regressive taxes in existence

Worth remembering that most of the people involved in this annual back slapping session have gotten rich on licence payers coin - one of the most unfair, vicious and regressive taxes in existence

and completely optional, there is no compulsion to have a TV, we don't.

Who most deserves a commendation for their donation?

And the prize for missing the whole point of charitable donations is awarded.

If you come at things like CiN from that point of view, you probably need to be asking questions of yourself.

Some rich people getting a kick out of being 'special' and on R2 seems a small price to pay for raising lots of cash for a great cause.

There's lots of competition by charities so R2/Children in Need give big 'spenders' special treatment so their money goes to them and not another charity.

So, you can afford to spend a million on a one off concert, which will aid charities in the UK, but you shouldn't cos some internet wombat might feel uncomfortable?

The OP needs to get a grip.

Do what you like with your money, WGAF what others think. Come tomorrow they'll have forgot about it and moved on to something else to feel bad about.

Worth pointing out-
For your £5, do you know how much goes to the 'Children in Need' charity..?
Evans on R2 this morning: 'Between £2.40 and £3.75 goes to Children in Need.'
Therefore someone, somewhere is making an awful lot of money from this scam.
And your mobile provider will also charge you for making the donation!!!

From their somewhat reduced contribution, CiN have to then pay a huge lot of their own admin costs before they actually start doing any good.
It is a money machine, much loved by those in the establishment and used by some as a means to salve their dodgy moral compass after avoiding their fair share of taxes.
+1 for the comments above about corporate contributions claiming tax deductions for their charitable donations. Many of these large bids will be tax deducted for someone; I've seen it happen. UK society would do much better if these corporates paid their proper taxes instead of pretending like this.

what would happen if everyone who could, simply donated all their taxable income to the charity of their choice instead of into general taxation & get their name in lights and a luxury weekend break for being so "generous" with money

I'm not sure you understand how the income tax system works.

It's impossible to give money to charity, and somehow be better off financially than you were before, no matter how good your accountant is.

It IS generous, there is no need to put it in inverted commas.

Government (both national and local) are massive funders of the charity sector - either through grant making or by contracting services from charities.

So if a charity has a contract with the government to provide services on behalf of the state for a fee agreed as part of a commercial arrangement then are they really a charity or just a service provider company?

Why not throw all the extravagant prizes in a raffle at £10 a ticket would think the pot would far exceed the amounts that some rich person has bid for it.
Would think Take That would much rather play to a run of the mill person and friends than some Rich person who will have their "friends" round just to ram one up them!

There are a lot of businesses out there that have the infrastructure to accommodate the call centres/payment services that this initiative needs, all funded/provided FOC and the teams who man the phones do it FOC too.

It's a once a year charity binge, £5 doesn't even buy you a sandwich and coffee from Pret these days, why not go hungry for one day and hand that £5 over to Children who may need a meal??

What's wrong with a charity auction complementing other measures? Would it be better to ban opportunities to part rich people from their money even in a good cause?

How very odd....

I bet you wouldn't be quite so vocal if it was your children benefiting from the charities that CiN supports.

I'd rather they were part of a society with services to which everyone contributes and uses when they need to do so, rather than being grateful beneficiaries of charitable largesse.

so what are you suggesting - banning these auctions?

No. Just that I've no interest in them or CiN and find the whole thing mildly distasteful.

So if a charity has a contract with the government to provide services on behalf of the state for a fee agreed as part of a commercial arrangement then are they really a charity or just a service provider company?

They are a charity - without question.

nealglover
I'm not sure you understand how the income tax system works.

It's impossible to give money to charity, and somehow be better off financially than you were before, no matter how good your accountant is.

Ok... I certainly don't remember insinuating that people are making money from the donations, as you seem to imply & what i've been trying to determine is if there's any mechanism / loophole / clever tax deferral system whereby a company (not private individual) can offset corporation tax (or anything else) against charitable donations? For years there's been whispers regarding tax loopholes for charitable donations, so can you or anyone tell me, absolutely categorically - from a qualified financial background in tax matters if that's the case, or has it ever been the case?

Tried to have a look through the UK Gov tax site, but it's slightly vague...

"Donating money
Your limited company can pay less Corporation Tax when it gives money to a charity or community amateur sports club (CASC).

[i]Deduct the value of the donations from your total business profits before you pay tax.[/i] "

Hence the mild confusion

I'm with the OP on this, it strikes me as very public 'willy-waving', and the amount that people have to spend on these jollities is eye-watering. If they are so filthy rich and are that charity-minded why don't they just quietly pop a cheque in the post?
It's like a parade of lottery-winners, but with the catch-phrase "it can't be you as you're not a multi-millionaire".
They should raffle off all of the packages, not a token one or two, as has been said it could well earn CiN more money too.

*switches to radio 4 as well*

An awful lot of public service is now provided by the voluntary sector. In some cases, with executives paid very handsomely indeed for their time. Just being a charity does not stop individuals becoming quite wealthy from the charity's funds.

Half of the money 'donated' to CiN does not reach good causes. Sorry to burst the bubble, but this one is a cynical scam promoted by some in the establishment to help massage their egos. It's just a shame that so many good and honest folk are taken in and donate. if you want to do something worthwhile with your spare £5, take it to a local foodbank or similar local entity doing real work in hard up communities (or whatever cause you like- just don't throw half of your fiver away to the profiteering entities behind CiN).

I agree strongly with the comment above about a 'raffle'; this is so much fairer but it still needs to be more tightly controlled to prevent large amounts of cash being filtered off - between £1.25 & £2.60 from every text message fiver gets diverted away to other organisations, before CiN even begins to pay its own overheads & advertising!!!

There's so much ill informed rubbish spouted on this thread it's hard to know where to start. But since I'm a qualified accountant and work for a charity, I'll have a stab at it anyway...

the sceptic in me wonders how much of these charitable donations are paid through a company & deducted from their tax liability

A couple of people have tried to address this one already, but the message seems to be missed so I'll pointlessly reiterate it anyway - a donation doesn't come off the liability, it comes of the taxable profit / income (depending on whether company or person) - so if an entity (person or company) has a marginal tax rate of 20%, a donation of £100 will reduce their tax liability by £20, so [b]it still costs them £80[/b].

wonder if anyone's ever submitted an FOI request to see where the % of donations come from - personal or business accounts?

Very doubtful that they have - most people would read up a bit on who and what the FOIA covers and realise they'd be wasting their time.

...many of whom employ all manner of financial jiggery pokery to avoid paying as much tax as possible...

Good point actually, but perhaps not in the way it was intended - people are exercised by people giving tax efficiently and also having a side moan about them being tax efficient generally. We seem to have landed on 20% as the benchmark for illustrations (hence I'm using it too), but since the marginal rate for most people on PAYE [b]is[/b] 20% and we get lots of famous statements about rich people "paying less tax than their cleaner" that's potentially overstating it - and if those clever rich people have set up their affairs to reduce their tax already, the marginal gains on charitable giving reduce accordingly too - so if an entity is only paying, say, 6% tax then that £100 donation now costs them £94 and they're only saving £6 in tax.

£1.1m directly to Children in Need will probably be better spent that £1.1m to the taxman.

That's not the transaction, covered above.

secondly how can i reduce my overall tax bill and thus increase my disposable income by donating money

If you're on PAYE it's dead easy - just give 80% of what you intended to give to the charity(s) and tick the "gift aid" box. The charity gets the full whack and you can spend the 20% you retained on coke and hookers. You're welcome.

'Between £2.40 and £3.75 goes to Children in Need.'
Therefore someone, somewhere is making an awful lot of money from this scam.
And your mobile provider will also charge you for making the donation!!!

Dunno the details but from the wide variability of the amount I'd take a punt on it being largely mobile networks. Telecoms company in charging for telecoms services shocker! Funny one this, I work for a charity. We have phone lines. The provider bills us. We pay them. Those rotten bastards are stealing money from our beneficiaries! Burn them! Or something. There will be other costs, dunno what they are, but despite what sometimes is portrayed on telly, you can't just rock up to suppliers of goods and services you need and go "we're a charity - give me it for free" - actually that's not quite true, you can, and sometimes it works, but often not. If you're lucky you might get a discount though.

As an aside, lots of telecoms companies provide facilities gratis - you know when there's one of these telethons and they ask you to call in and there's a couple of banks of desks at the nack of the studio with people (sometimes famous ones!) taking calls? There's also probably a few thousand staff working unpaid in call centres up and down the country provided FOC for the evening by the likes of big telecoms companies and banks (the bastards).

From their somewhat reduced contribution, CiN have to then pay a huge lot of their own admin costs before they actually start doing any good.

Ah, the old "multi-million pound organisations run themselves and shouldn't cost any money to administer" fallacy, hello old friend. The logical argument, with specific examples, has been repeated often enough that it's not really worth going through it again - just find an old charity-bashing thread, I'm sure it'll be there. So, a slightly different angle:

You know all those other multi-million pound turnover organisations? The ones who's primary purpose is increasing shareholder value? Businesses? You know how they have head office and admin costs that don't directly contribute anything to the bottom line, but just cost money? Do you think that, if it was possible to run the thing without spending all that money, they wouldn't do that? Exactly. Other than sending out dividends, pretty much all the head office / back office costs for a charity are going to be the same, aren't they?

So if a charity has a contract with the government to provide services on behalf of the state for a fee agreed as part of a commercial arrangement then are they really a charity or just a service provider company?

Err, it's a charity. It can get complicated (lets ignore Community Interest Companies for now) but it boils down to purpose. The purpose of a company (if commercial) is to increase shareholder value (no, that isn't necessarily the same as maximising profits, although it could be, but lets not go there). So that's who the company is working for. There are commercial companies doing the same things as charities in lots of sectors - in many cases we compete for the same pots of public money for doing it, hell we might even work together on some projects. But they're doing it for different reasons. The charity exists for its beneficiaries, and that's who the trustees have to work for and have to be able to demonstrate that they work for. Our directors (trustees) have no personal financial interest. The business is working to enrich the shareholders. That's who the Directors are accountable to. I could go on all day about that impacts (I used to work in the commerical sector so I do know what both look like) but the short version is that in every critical way, the ethos of the organisation is completely and utterly different.

Going back to the admin costs thing, I think one thing that confuses people is the difference between a business (as above, which charities by definition can't be) and "being businesslike" which a multi-million pound turnover organisation damn well should be - since businesses are driven by shareholder value, they tend to be efficient, certainly compared to, say, the public sector. Accepting that you will have back office costs (please, can we just accept this?) like a commercial business, a charity should strive to make them as lean as possible, the difference being that rather than enriching shareholders, it releases more for direct benefit in line with the charitable purpose.

For years there's been whispers regarding tax loopholes for charitable donations, so can you or anyone tell me, absolutely categorically - from a qualified financial background in tax matters if that's the case, or has it ever been the case?

Okay, well, erm, actually, yes. It was called the Cup Trust - suggest a googling if you want details cos this post is already turning into a monster and it's a little bit complex - in short they were manipulating gift aid rules on a massive, massive scale with entirely contrived "donation" transactions involving shares. The good news is that the government defeated them in court. That was a charity set up specifically as a tax dodge though, it's not possible to scam via real donations to real charities.

In some cases, with executives paid very handsomely indeed for their time. Just being a charity does not stop individuals becoming quite wealthy from the charity's funds.

It's all relative isn't it? I don't know what your income is, but maybe it is substantially less than the Chief Executive of a charity that turns over millions each year gets so that looks like a lot to you. Maybe it's less than the Finance Director gets too. But on the other side of the coin, those CEOs look at what people running equivalent sized (and complex) organisations in the private sector take home and, if money was their main motivators, might think that those private sector guys are getting way to much, or that they are getting too little. This wouldn't happen because, if bringing in the cash was the main motivator, they wouldn't be working for a charity in the first place.

I work in the sector and I've seen the industry surveys and benchmarking comparisons, and here's how it breaks down (by and large): the charity people at the "bottom" of the pay scales generally get about the same or slightly more than their colleagues in the commercial sector, the middle rankers about the same or slightly less and the senior people [b]significantly[/b] less. That's the reality.

Half of the money 'donated' to CiN does not reach good causes.

That's so far from true that it's really not funny. It takes about a minute to get the summary financials up on the Charity Commission website, a couple more clicks and you can download their annual accounts. To save you the bother, latest figures (2016) for their expenditure:

Charitable Activities* £56.76M
Generating Voluntary Income** £4.32M
Trading to Raise Funds £0.75M
Investment Management*** £0.11M
Governance £0.52M
TOTAL: £62.46M

*that's the money reaching "good causes" then
** that's fundraising costs, that is.
*** They had investment income of £1.24M so that looks like reasonable value.

Somewhere under the ill-informed ranting there might be a serious, critical point to be made about CiN as a grant making charity - effectively such charities risk higher erosion of funds since they pass through two sets of admin costs - theirs, and then the admin costs of the charity that they give a grant to. It's a criticism that can be levelled at all such charities and foundations, but they would argue that, but for their work, the funds wouldn't be there at all.

Apologies for the length of that, there was actually quite a bit more I wanted to write...

edlong thanks for the response. It should actually be a standard text for anybody responding to this thread before they say anything. Not that it would stop them, mind. This is STW after all and we could argue with ourselves if nobody else was around 🙂

i was just thinking that and edlong comes along and writes it all down.. chapeau fella..

cheeers ed - v informative

Accepting that you will have back office costs (please, can we just accept this?) like a commercial business

Telecoms company in charging for telecoms services shocker! Funblah blah blah (remaining condescending waffle deleted)

so they [i]can[/i] do it for free. And yet, with this Chris Evans [s]scam[/s] raffle, suddenly there are "back office costs" of up to 52%? And no-one's profiting from this?

[img] [/img]

The following mobile network operators have waived their charges in order to allow the full £5/£10/£20 cost of the reply confirmation text messages (described below) to go entirely to support BBC Children in Need: 3, O2, Virgin, EE, Vodafone.
so they can do it for free. And yet, with this Chris Evans scam raffle, suddenly there are "back office costs" of up to 52%? And no-one's profiting from this?

Dunno, that is interesting, I'd be very interested in knowing the answer to what and where those charges are - does anyone know? The answer to what it is would tell you whether someone's profiting I suppose - if it's third party services provided by a business then "yes", if it's costs incurred at the charity then "no".

I suppose if its not telcoms costs and the only difference is that the texts are going into some sort of raffle (I don't listen to R2 so I don't know the details of what it is) then logically it must relate to processing the necessary data to do the raffle? I know that often, for example, charities use organisations like the Electoral Reform Society to administer raffles and the rules (statutory ones) around charity raffles and the like are (rightly) a bit onerous. Still, it seems like a big slice and if anyone has or can get any further detail on how it breaks down I'd love to see it.

Apologies that you thought I was being condescending btw - FWIW I find being told that those of us who work for charities should live on fresh air and self-righteousness a bit shit too.

Okay, I've had another look and I think you're confusing different things (or deliberately trying to mislead):

- the bit you've quoted about "network operators waived their blah blah" seems to be taken from the donations bit - the details on the thing with the variable contribution (£2.49 to £3.75) is from a different place entirely, the "Chris Evans Breakfast Show Text Competition" which very much does [b]not[/b] include the statement that charges are waived.

In fact, more than that, it is very clear if you quote the whole bit that at least some of the difference between what you pay and what goes in [b]must[/b] be telecoms charges, since what it says is (my bold):

Each text message entry will result in a donation to BBC Children in Need of between £2.49 and £3.75 ([b]depending on your mobile network operator[/b]).

Logically, if the amount varies by operator, the operator charges can't all be zero now, can they?

If you look closely, the telecoms firm administering the Evans thing is different from the one doing the donations. That might or might not be pertinent, just something I noticed while reading through it.

Well said. Brilliant summary.

I've just listened to the show so I can actually try and understand what on earth the whinging and moaning is about. Somebody donated £1.1m (plus gift aid presumably) to children in need, in return they have the *pleasure of a private take that session.

The self congratulatory bit was Chris saying that "Elaine from London" is an amazingly generous person etc.

I really must be missing something or on another planet because I'm just not getting what's wrong here in the slightest. 😐

He made it perfectly clear during the show several times that it was phone operator costs. They even had a special statement acknowledging how absurd the sums of money were and how grateful the charity is for every £ you can afford.

I remain confused by the thread after taking the time to actually listen to the show.

I really must be missing something or on another planet because I'm just not getting what's wrong here in the slightest.

Nothing, it's just selfish people justifying their selfishness by lying to themselves about how evil CiN and Chris Evans are, so they can feel better about their self centred existence. The irony being they might genuinely feel better if they weren't so selfish and self centred but are too blinkered to see that.

They raised about £3m this week.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2J4Xwg9DkqLHlSnZFg11FPD/chris-evans-breakfast-show-auctions-for-children-in-need

I'm just going to hark back to the question that someone posed about a millionaire donating a large sum and an elderly lady donating her last fiver.

Who most deserves a commendation for their donation?

The whole pretext for posing that question is so wrong it is actually quite depressing.

This kind of chip on shoulder pettiness in the context of CiN and what it supports is just staggering.

Do we think that "Elaine from London" rang in and said "you can have £x for your pitiful little cause so long as you mention my name on the radio"?

Loads of money raised for children in need of help?

Mission accomplished.

This kind of chip on shoulder pettiness

The problem is that if you let the chips on your shoulders get too big they turn into blinkers.

And I defy anyone to watch tonight's DIY SOS for CiN and begrudge anyone that supports what they do!

Cheers for the summary edlong - clears up a few things, I admit I had the tax angle wrong - I suppose many people still think of charities as organizations run by skilled volunteers with a bit of spare time out of the goodness of their hearts, like all the tradesmen from DIY SOS etc. instead of being run like like a corporation, but yes, obviously given the scale of the operation those are the necessities given the turnover & scale of the operation.

FWIW I find being told that those of us who work for charities should live on fresh air and self-righteousness a bit shit too.

Not on fresh air, no, but the sums that some staff are paid puts me off donating.

I used to sponsor a child through World Vision for 20 years or so. When I found out how much they were paying some of their staff (World Vision Canada CEO 300,000 base salary, (plus home valued at $800,000 dollar all housing expenses, including taxes, water/sewer, telephone/fax, HD/high speed cable, weekly maid service and pool/yard maintenance, fully paid private schooling for his children, upscale automobile and an $55,000 personal expense account for clothing/food, with a $125,000 business expense account) I figured that I wasn't going to subsidise that sort of lifestyle anymore.

Similarly I was a member of Amnesty International from when I was a student until I heard that they paid some of their staff £500K redundancy packages, why should I subsidise that sort of bollox??

CiN have got £27 from me this year, I just hope they spend it wisely.....

OK, now I'm not a massive fan of World Vision as it happens, but that's more about the fact that they are not always totally transparent about being an evengelical Christian organisation, and some evidence that some of their literature around sponsored children hasn;t necessarily stood up to scrutiny, but I notice that you haven;t provided a source for those figures, and a brief bit of googling suggests that they are cobblers - and from an email that has been circulating since at least 2005 so if they were ever right (I'll come onto that in a moment) they probably wouldn't be 11 years later.

Now I know it can be dangerous to take anything on the internet at face value without going to primary sources, but over the years I've found snopes.com to be a pretty trustworthy source of bullshit refutation, so I'll go with their findings on the subject:

That organization provided us with the following information:

Dave Toycen [President and CEO of World Vision Canada] salary is $184,000 which is a matter of public record. As per our Board's compensation policy, Dave and all of our top executives earn substantially less than executives who run comparable organizations. This policy is overseen by our Board's Executive Committee and is regularly assessed by an independent external consultant. We disclose executive compensation as required to the Canada Revenue Agency.

Dave does not live in a $700,000-$800,000 home, and none of his housing costs are paid for by World Vision. He has lived in the same house outside of Toronto for more than 20 years. He travels economy class and does not use the most cutting edge technology.

Accountability in the use of funds and transparency to our donors are among our core values and they are taken seriously at World Vision. As evidence of this:

- The facts about our executive compensation, including the President's renumeration, are published openly on our website;

- Our annual report and independently audited financial statements are also available for review.

There's plenty of bullshit circulating on the internet and by email. What I find depressing is the number of seemingly intelligent people who take such crap at face value when it can take literally seconds to do a bit of due diligence and fact checking...

Dave Toycen is the CURRENT CEO of World Vision, I was referring to the CEO who was in place when I stopped donating

Also, the snopes figures don't match World Visions own figures who say they currently pay $249,000
http://www.worldvision.ca/aboutus/Pages/Executive-Compensation.aspx

My brothers wifes sister happens to work for World Vision in the UK and is on a hefty wedge with a fancy beemer as a company car, so internet aside I'm no longer interested in funding those peoples lifestyles.

As for Amnesty it was reported in the Grundiad that Irene Khan, received £530,000 – four times her salary – on leaving Amnesty last year. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/02/amnesty-international-staff-management-restructuring if you want to check........

@ed thanks for the considered and informative posts.

Large charities resemble a business organisation is some respects as that what actually works in the real world. If you want to see real charity abuse have a look at some of the celeb ones, Aussie cricketer Shane Warne is one of the worst I have seen.

some of the celeb ones

Or Bradley Wiggins (ducks for cover), and isn't David Miliband on $600K at Thunderbirds.

@ jamba

You want to look at bullshit "charities" working in the name of celebrities, suggest you start your google search with the words "Lance" and "Armstrong"

So Livestrong pays its CEO $700,000 - glad I never bought one of those crappy yellow wrist bands............

https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=13379

Also, the snopes figures don't match World Visions own figures who say they currently pay $249,000
http://www.worldvision.ca/aboutus/Pages/Executive-Compensation.aspx

Now, I just followed the link you posted and it doesn't actually say that, does it? What it actually says is

.. including taxable and non-taxable employer contributions to benefits such as company pension plan, Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance, group insurance, car allowance, life insurance and other benefits. When all of those are included, the president’s compensation is shown within the T3010’s category of $200,000-249,000.

and you appear to have made a bit of a leap by assuming that £200-249K means £249K ?

But it's okay, because further up the same page it does tell us what his salary is:

our president, Michael Messenger, currently earns the top annual base salary of $215,000 plus a combination of taxable and non-taxable benefits.

so what we do know is that his total package is somewhere between £215K and £249K. Not quite the same as what you have stated above.

So Livestrong pays its CEO $700,000 - glad I never bought one of those crappy yellow wrist bands............

Personally, I'm not that hung up on what the CEO's salary is, they may be worth double that if they deliver. My issue with Livestrong is that it is much more about "Brand Armstrong" and has been singularly unable over the years to back up any of its many outrageous claims regarding the contribution it makes to "fighting cancer" (which, as far as I'm aware, seems to be close to nowt).

I mean, you can go "he gets $700,000" or "blimey that Worldvision fella's on close to quarter of a million" but what are you basing the outrage on? Can you tell me what the CEO of a Livestrong or a Worldvision should be getting? Why that much? I haven't got a clue what the going rate for a Canadian Charity CEO is, the guy might be getting massively underpaid for all I know...

Anyone else go hungry and instead donated thier lunch wonga to CIN ?

I mean, you can go "he gets $700,000" or "blimey that Worldvision fella's on close to quarter of a million" but what are you basing the outrage on

When I was struggling to get by I didn't mind donating to help folk who were in need, but not to support fat-cat salaries.

Charity auctions eh?
I'd have paid a tenner for a raffle ticket for that Yeti auctioned for Jenn but there was no way I could afford to bid and win it so I just gave money to a charity I support*. It made no difference in real terms to me, the odds of me winning would be slight anyway, but I felt excluded somehow... 😯

Yeah, boo hoo for poor me. First world problems etc.

* RNLI and Macmillan. And money in the collectors buckets today.

When I was struggling to get by I didn't mind donating to help folk who were in need, but not to support fat-cat salaries.

Fair enough, but assuming that you're realistic enough to realise that an organisation is going to have running costs, and some of that will be what they pay to the people that run it, how do you assess what's a reasonable amount and what is "fat cat"? What level of salary for the CEO would be low enough that you would think "fair enough" and keep donating? And how did you decide that that's a reasonable number?

The £1m bidder for Take That is now selling tickets to the gig to raise money for another charity!

http://www.itv.com/news/channel/update/2017-01-30/take-that-to-perform-in-jersey-this-autumn/