Which charities are REALLY worth supporting?

I joined local hospice lottery , give to Salvation Army collections , put food in food bank box support cancer research although they seem to spend a lot on sending paperwork out saying you could win whatever if you donate I don't want to win anything would rather they kept money I sponsor GC and friends .

I chose a portfolio of charities that I wished to support then I chose mainly smaller and less popular societies to contribute to.

My interests are mainly overseas aid, human rights, here and abroad, organic and earth friendly agriculture, health charities that support less popular health problems. I do not support 'popular' causes, usually those with the 'ahh' factor: animals, children, military 'heroes' or cancer, they have no problem getting funds from the general pubic.

I have no problem with charities spending money on advertising; it usually brings in far more money than it costs, that is why the charities do it. The charities I support are small because they do not have the funds to advertise.

Any thing to do with the armed forces of our country always gets my money.
I was asked once at one of the military charities collections at my local supermarket why I gave to that particular one.My answer was, without the brave men and women who gave their lives for this country, in all probabilities I would not be standing here today.

The Salvation Army was one of the charities that shipped children, some as young as. 4-years old, to places like Australia. The children believed their parents were dead, but in many cases this wasn't the case.

I used to give to military mental health charities because it was a subject the military as a whole shied away from, but now the big generic military charities like Help for Heroes fund it and it doesn't struggle they way it did.

I now fund a charity for the homeless as a disproportionate of the homeless have served in the military and it works to help them.

Mine is Crohns and Colitis UK. This is personal to me as my 16 yr old son has crohns disease. They are seriously underfunded in trying to find a cure, so are always after funds.
I will support local charities, like air ambulance and Forces ones, but that is about it.
I won't send any money abroad, any charities I do support are all UK based.

Anya The Salvation Army is one of the biggest users and promoters of workfare particularly of people who are ill and it deletes comments on fb of anyone who challenges them.

I donate to RNLI and British Heart Foundation, I like to buy in Charity shops, think that helps some charities.

Jaycee5 - what is "workfare" ? (I live in Canada...haven't heard the term).

Anya ,I never donate to the Salvation Army ,many years ago we decided to run a promotion for christmas portraits ,instead of charging a fee we asked peopel to bring a gift ,wrapped,labelled for boy/girl and with an age that was appropriate for .We contacted the Salvation Army and offered the gifte to them ...they refused .So a local single parent unit got them instead Thet got them every year for the few years we did it

A few years back my son, who has a heart condition, but was running marathons, approached one of the large heart charities wanting to wear a vest and give his sponsorship money to them. He was told he'd have to get £££ in sponsorship before they would agree to this!! Needless to say he donated elsewhere!!
I personally support the East Midlands Air Ambulance and our local Loros hospice.

Red cross, salvation army, world vision, crisis at Christmas , medecin sans frontiers. Never give to animal charities. People are more important in my opinion.

I won't be giving to the Salvation Army after reading some of the posts on here - what a shame such an old and established charity has somehow gone wrong...

My local Hospice, who were wonderful in caring for my husband.

My MIL who died in July was inundated with begging letters and was always being asked to send more - she thought that the thank you letters and Christmas cards they sent were personal, she didn't realise they were computer generated. This Christmas we made donations to Mary's Meals sort of on behalf of other people so two virtual plates on the virtual table have their names on them. I buy from and give to charity shops, much of MIL's effects went to a charity shop. we give to local charities who appreciate a donation, whereas it would be a drop in the ocean to some national charities. If I had a windfall I'd love to buy a RNLI inshore rescue boat and name it after my father.

After a career in the private sector I took on a post in the Third Sector feeling very happy that I would use my skills for a good cause I cared about. The salaries and conditions were so poor the standard of talent and skills matched. The CEO was not on a high salary: shockingly low which went with the culture. The charity hit their annual targets by desperately scraping around, chasing up legacies and outstanding membership fees at year end - which should have been managed professionally throughout the year but weren't due to sloppy management. Much money was wasted on sickness - real or otherwise but goodwill and putting in long hours because you 'cared' was expected.

My time was spent not raising funds from the corporate sector; this was not done aggressively; but performance managing a poor choice of staff whom I inherited many of which I had too let go. Never a pleasant experience on either part. Recruiting replacements with relavent experience was nigh on impossible, time consuming and finacially challenging.

I left. Returned home and cancelled every single charity donation I had subscribed too for years I was so disgusted.

My advice is that if you are donating to a charity, ring fence your contribution. Be clear what your money is used for, charities have a legal obligation to respect that.. I'm just about to revise my will and will leave a substantial amount to a charity I care about. Are they well managed? I don't know and probably impossible to find out. So I shall make sure my legacy will stipulate that funds are used for a particular element of their work.

If you don't, your donation goes into the general pot and can underpin running costs of the organisation. If the organisation has no business acumen then you are paying for their inability to manage the charity.

Médecins sans Frontières pay their CEO around £77,000 and do the most remarkable work, often on the frontline in war zones and they get the bulk of my giving. They have a policy of paying their CEO no more than 3 times their lowest paid administration staff and I gather that at present she receives 3.1 times the lowest paid who receives £24,000.

Any charity that spends my donation sending me booklets etc does not get another donation. That's not what I gave the money for.

PS or pays its Chief Exec a large amount of money.

Nelliemags, £24,000 is a huge salary for a lot of the ordinary working people of this country - I'm not sure why you think paying all admin staff that much or more is a good thing for a charity to do!

Headway because they were phenomenal when DS1 had a stroke and we would not be living independently with out his brilliant Headway Social worker.

Alzheimer's Society because I volunteer for them and their outreach work is on a par with Headway.

Our Community Association as they do brilliant community work in the village

And, DEC when they ask!

Nelliemaggs can you please post a link to back up this claim for MSF CEO's pay.

Or did you mean the Executive Director UK who does earn about this amount perhaps?

Ana the average annual wage in the UK April 2015 was £27,600.

Yes Anya, I know that. I also know that in the area I live the average wage is nowhere near that amount.

In fact it's nowhere near £24,000. How the other half lives, eh?