# Charity collectors in street



## Chip_iTT (Nov 14, 2003)

I know 'tis the season of goodwill etc. but...

<rant on>
... I am getting more and more pissed off by these 'do gooders' in the street... Went up Tottenham Ct Rd in my lunch break today from Leicester Sq and was accosted by no less than 5 different groups all asking me to spare a minute so they could get me on a mailing beg list....

Now don't get me wrong, I am all for charity and give generously of my time and effort as well as hard earned cash.... but these guys/girls are on commission and to be followed down the street by someone shouting "It'll only take a minute" is bloody annoying.... Shelter, Oxfam, 2 Cancer research/care organisations and something to do with famine relief I think - all in the space of a km or so... sometimes I feel I have to put head down and charge....

There a rules against harrassment and I think there should be rules that limit the number of organisations and people 'collecting' in one area...
</rant off>


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## raven (May 7, 2002)

Completely agree. The worst thing is when you are meeting someone and there is nowhere to go. I was meeting a chap for lunch just before Christmas and was waiting outside Tesco near Liverpool Street station, and there were swarms of them. I had to fake a mobile phone call just to stop them coming up to me. :-[

I wouldn't mind if they just wanted the odd Â£1 or so, but they want you to commit to an annual payment of Â£50 or so for the rest of your life. What's more, I'm not convinced that many of the charities in this country are well run. For example, I wonder how much of every pound you give them actually goes to the cause itself? I would guess something like 10-20%, and the rest is spent on admin.


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

I am really pleased to be supporting Help the Aged, Guide Dogs for the Blind through having been so inconveniently stopped in the street and wasting precious minutes of my valuable time.

Gosh i could have missed quality leisure shopping time to buy more crap with which to clog up my life with rather than actually help someone. :

For the time you'd queue for a sodding latte. Fucking skinflints.


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## phil (May 7, 2002)

Don't encourage them. The folk who do the collecting in the streets don't work for a charity. They work for a company who saves the charity the bother of collecting for themselves. The charity only get a small percentage of what's collected though, the rest going to some bloke running a business (who probably pays the guys on the street minimum wage).
Give to charity, but get these conmen off the streets. And out of pubs. One thing I really hate is when they try to prise money out of drunk people.


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## Dotti (Mar 9, 2003)

I got accosted by a smart well presented young man of some homeless charity organisation whilst shopping in my local supermarket.

Firstly they were explaining to me about homeless people who then couldn't work because of their situation etc etc. The man was going on so much I thought he was going to ask me to sign up to help the charity out and work as an employee as he was blurting out money figures to me. To then find out out that the next thing he wanted to arrange a direct debit set up of Â£12 per week from my bank account and telling me how this organisation needs Â£38,000 per week to help homleess people out.

Whilst I am sympathetic to this cause and charity I felt like phoning the charity and mentioning many ways they could cut costs and for starters to get rid of the three people who were obviously located at my local supermarket for this one day only, as they were time wasting emplyees, with jobs that were not really needed and taking money from the charity and asking the public to put back in to pay for the likes of their jobs and a possibly a percentage to the homeless. . Well anyway it really p****d me off whilst shopping around the supermarket as I then felt guilty


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## A3DFU (May 7, 2002)

> I know 'tis the season of goodwill etc. Â but...
> 
> There a rules against harrassment and I think there should be rules that limit the number of organisations and people 'collecting' in one area...
> </rant off>


This has happened where I live: no more than 2 _beggars_ in the village centre!!


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## Chip_iTT (Nov 14, 2003)

> For the time you'd queue for a sodding latte. Fucking skinflints.


I'm glad you put the  at the end gary... otherwise I'd be really pissed off at u 

And for the record I personally raised Â£15,000 100% of which went to Marie Curie Cancer Care and other related and deserving causes through running London Marathon twice and other events... and i can tell you, getting the money out of the sponsors is a hell of a lot harder than the 6mo of training in all weathers I did to get fit for them ... so if we wanna talk about skinflints....

Its not about time (although for me time = money as it does for many of us who run our own businesses), its about effectiveness and value in terms of what the charity actually ends up with and I object to being made to feel 'wrong' by not stopping and being followed in the street


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## raven (May 7, 2002)

> Don't encourage them. The folk who do the collecting in the streets don't work for a charity. They work for a company who saves the charity the bother of collecting for themselves. The charity only get a small percentage of what's collected though, the rest going to some bloke running a business (who probably pays the guys on the street minimum wage).
> Give to charity, but get these conmen off the streets. And out of pubs. One thing I really hate is when they try to prise money out of drunk people.


Couldn't agree more. The trouble with these aggressive charity collectors on the street is that they are _putting people off_ donating money to charity.

I will always donate to the chap selling poppies, or the blind chap collecting for guide dogs for the blind, the chap collecting for the RNLI etc etc, especially as they are giving up their time to collect for the charity.

I'm also glad garyc added a wink after his comment, because it's certainly not a case of being a skinflint, it's a case of wanting to give money to a charity, and not to line the pockets of some businessman, as Phil describes above. 

That said, I still think that the average charity is poorly run (as with most non-profit making institutions) and that so much of the money donated is wasted.


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## HumphreyF (Nov 7, 2003)

> Don't encourage them. The folk who do the collecting in the streets don't work for a charity. They work for a company who saves the charity the bother of collecting for themselves.


And thereby save the cost of advertising.....

Weigh up the cost of where you'd rather a proportion of your money went - to the guys standing in the rain holding their pots out - or to a advertising agency.....

On another note - if they annoy you in pubs I've had fascinating results by saying to them in the past ' I'm sorry but I don't give to beggars' - can liven up a dull evening


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## kingcutter (Aug 1, 2003)

[smiley=deal2.gif] BIG ISSUE


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## raven (May 7, 2002)

> And thereby save the cost of advertising.....
> 
> Weigh up the cost of where you'd rather a proportion of your money went - to the guys standing in the rain holding their pots out - or to a advertising agency.....
> 
> On another note - if they annoy you in pubs I've had fascinating results by saying to them in the past ' I'm sorry but I don't give to beggars' - can liven up a dull evening


There is a BIG difference between the agressive commission driven collectors the original post refers to, and the non-aggresive people voluntarilty collecting for charity.


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## head_ed (Dec 10, 2002)

Never ceases to amaze me the reaction I get when I ask what the charity is for.

I give to charities that I have had personal contact with, Lifeboats (OK, before anyone says I know it's the best supported & richest charity in the UK - but I was rescued once and for that I give freely to them), various cancer charities, as members of my close family have died from it, a local hospice for the same reason, a local wildlife sanctuary and of course the Poppy Appeal.

I won't give just because someone thrusts a collection tin in your face hoping to make you feel guilty. I usually ask, and if it's not for something that I feel strongly about then I refuse politely and move on.

That said, Cardiff city centre is full of collectors, and it is quicker just to zig-zag up the street than have the hassle of explaining to the plod why you've just smacked an old lady who is collecting for 'blind lesbians for the deaf'. 

mart.


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## Chip_iTT (Nov 14, 2003)

> There is a BIG difference between the agressive commission driven collectors the original post refers to, and the non-aggresive people voluntarilty collecting for charity.


Quite, I can always find a few coins for them... I've done my fair share of standing on street corners with a tin and a box of daffs.... (funny, it was my wife who agreed to do it...so why did I end up being the one standing in the rain..... :-/ )


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## Dont I Recognise You (Oct 10, 2003)

> (funny, it was my wife who agreed to do it...so why did I end up being the one standing in the rain..... :-/ )


*because* it was your wife who agreed to do it... :-/



> That said, Cardiff city centre is full of collectors


yep


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## garyc (May 7, 2002)

...and does charity begin at home?

Seb's point re: cost of collection - direct hawking Vs indirect demand pull via advertising/marketing mailshots etc - is a highly valid point that I had not thought of before.

Which is likely to be most cost effective; costs of collection compared to net contribution to charity?

My money is on the direct model. But i am sure those in advertising and marketing services will have a view.

PS You are still all fucking skinflints


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## head_ed (Dec 10, 2002)

lucky skinflints I say! :


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## scoTTy (May 6, 2002)

Type "chuggers" (charity muggers) into Google and there's masses of stuff about this.

I get tackled four times a day nearly everyday.

They might get pissed off at people being rude to them but I get pissed off at being harassed 20 times a week. I'm only rude if they don't give up


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## HumphreyF (Nov 7, 2003)

> Type "chuggers" (charity muggers) into Google and there's masses of stuff about this.


Who thought that up - Nissan?


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## head_ed (Dec 10, 2002)

Don't they play pop?


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## StuarTT (May 7, 2002)

I know it's not an option for everyone, but it's much better getting involved with a charity as a volunteer, rather than just as a doner.

At least you can see where your time and effort is going and what it is achieving. Unfortunately, with a lot of charities this is not always clear.


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## Kell (May 28, 2002)

It used to be the case that every Ad agency had a charity on their roster to ease their conscience and the work they did was not quite 'pro bono' as the Septics say, but certainly non-profit.

Nowadays I know of several agencies for whom Charity advertising is by far their most profitable account.

Not giving to the people in the street is not a skinflint thing to do, I'm the same as Mart in that I give to the ones that are closest to home or that I have some sort of link with.


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