RE: [split] Neil Armstrong Dead
August 26, 2012 at 7:04 pm
(This post was last modified: August 26, 2012 at 7:06 pm by Cyberman.)
I'm going to try another approach, see if Lion acknowledges any of this since so far I've been left out in the cold. By the way, unlike any previous anecdotes I may have recounted, this one genuinely occurred.
Yesterday, my Dad received a 'phone call regarding the RSPCA and would he like to make a donation. I'll spare you the details since it's rather a long and painful story, but the upshot is the bloke on the 'phone doesn't actually work for the charity itself; the RSPCA pays an agency to handle all its call centre work. In other words, 15% (the actual figure quoted in the discussion) of all the money donated to the RSPCA is spent hiring an agency specifically to cold-call people and request donations.
Now that might not seem unreasonable; after all, the RSPCA is still retaining 85% of the donated money, though for what allocated purposes we shall probably never know - admin? Stationery? Advertising? The point remains, however, that the more money donated to the charity by people who expect their money actually to go towards helping endangered animals - you know, the sort of thing the RSPCA is supposed to be doing - the greater the slice that is creamed off by their call centre agency merely to beg more money. I'm no mathematician but even I know that 15% of, say, £1,000,000 represents a far greater wodge of wampum than 15% of £1.
I'm not saying that charities are a Bad Thing and people should not give them any money at all. I'm simply stating that the money and other aid that finally reaches those for whom it's intended and who may depend upon it for their very survival can be a mere fraction of what's left after everyone else along the chain has helped themselves to what they clearly see as their share.
I don't want to sound as impatient as I feel right now but I genuinely do want to see the points in this and my previous few posts addressed. Lion, where art thou?
Yesterday, my Dad received a 'phone call regarding the RSPCA and would he like to make a donation. I'll spare you the details since it's rather a long and painful story, but the upshot is the bloke on the 'phone doesn't actually work for the charity itself; the RSPCA pays an agency to handle all its call centre work. In other words, 15% (the actual figure quoted in the discussion) of all the money donated to the RSPCA is spent hiring an agency specifically to cold-call people and request donations.
Now that might not seem unreasonable; after all, the RSPCA is still retaining 85% of the donated money, though for what allocated purposes we shall probably never know - admin? Stationery? Advertising? The point remains, however, that the more money donated to the charity by people who expect their money actually to go towards helping endangered animals - you know, the sort of thing the RSPCA is supposed to be doing - the greater the slice that is creamed off by their call centre agency merely to beg more money. I'm no mathematician but even I know that 15% of, say, £1,000,000 represents a far greater wodge of wampum than 15% of £1.
I'm not saying that charities are a Bad Thing and people should not give them any money at all. I'm simply stating that the money and other aid that finally reaches those for whom it's intended and who may depend upon it for their very survival can be a mere fraction of what's left after everyone else along the chain has helped themselves to what they clearly see as their share.
I don't want to sound as impatient as I feel right now but I genuinely do want to see the points in this and my previous few posts addressed. Lion, where art thou?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
