Is Children in Need drowning the many smaller charities?

Totally agree with you quizqueen.

You may recall the five minute film earlier with Francesca visiting children to give their parents a breathing space. Francesca's role at our local small Rennie Grove hospice at home charity is funded by CiN.

Oh dear, I'm now thoroughly disillusioned.
I only ever give to our local homeless shelter, usually donations of food, clothing and bedding, all new. They have a wish list of items that they need and local people can give whatever they care to.
I also buy my Christmas cards from the RNLI and donate small amounts to the air ambulance service.
After that, its local animal shelters, if and when I can afford it. Never Comic Relief or CiN as I feel it's grown far beyond the original purpose.

Thank you Alygran for that clarification, I though that was the case, but good to have it confirmed!

CIN do fund projects in smaller charities. The charity where I am a trustee has a grant from them for 3 years to run activities for youngsters who are Carers.

As I understand it, but may be wrong, the money raised by the Children in Need event is often used to help/fund smaller/local projects, I think there was something on Radio 4 today about a local charity that received funding from CIN.

I think if you look on websites of charities you can see that for most big charities between 80%-95% of funds raised go directly to their 'field work' with 5%-20% being used for salaries and management/admin costs. All finance info is all publicly available. Many of the running costs are paid for by long established investments. To get the finances that charities need, to do their valuable work that many people depend upon, a great deal of management and admin is needed & that costs.

Someone I knew worked for a branch of what was the the RSSPCC (now Children 1st) and she said that Children in Need would give to set up a project, but then not help with ongoing funding for it. Before applying, therefore, they had to think very hard about whether or not they could afford to continue funding such projects themselves.

Yet again, I recommend the Charities Aid Foundation as a way of giving anonymously to charities, which then can't get at you because they don't know who you are.

The top 10 paid charity CEOs include hospital / medical foundations:Wellcome Trust/ London Hospital/ Nuffield Health type places & Royal Opera House!

quizqueen what made you so bitter?

I watched it for the first time and was disgusted by a sketch with a female newsreader and two so called 'comedians' who clearly embarrassed her horribly by relentlessly waving a large penis shaped balloon in her face. This was supposed to be humour - I switched off, and as it was before the 9 o clock watershed I did wonder what the BBC thought it was doing.
A friend who is an accountant worked for several large charities and was horrified at the amounts paid to senior staff. He cancelled his donations and now gives money to a local school for the disabled - he helps to buy whatever they need directly.

All charities have overheads but with some, it's more than just business, it's BIG business.
I wonder what proportion of donations go to the actual target and what goes on advertising, salaries, buildings and admin et al.
I give a set amount to KSSAIR RNLI and the Sally Army, volunteer with Crisis and Samaritans, collect for the BL in November and donate blood. I don't give to these huge monolithic charities which hand around the begging bowl every Christmas season.
When the envelopes stuffed with tat ie: biros, penguin beer mats, 'Xmas' stickers etc and 'file' photos of half starved children etc come through my letterbox, they don't even get opened. Fodder for recycling.
Each to their own.

I donate to our local Highland Hospice and Mary's Meals those are the only two charities I support. I'm not paying outrageous salaries to the 'fund raisers' or paying to decorate offices where the fat cats can gather in comfort. Too much money is wasted on vanity projects and salaries - well not from me!

Jo1960 My feelings exactly! I have worked for charities virtually all my working life including for a DV charity and I completely agree with everything you said ?

Thinking about this, a while ago I remember reading about the origins of Telephons (any sort of charity phone in) in the US. One thing the organisers decided that they had to 'make them cry' to get the audience to donate.

Granny23 The 'New Project' issue is a real problem for charities applying for grants. They mainly need funding to keep going or to expand existing projects but virtually all grant organisations want a new project. It is hard enough to find one that your charity meets the general criteria for without having to create a new project. I found the whole thing very frustrating. It is not so bad if they ask for an initial email but some organisations want a virtual thesis. One organisation I applied to said that they liked what the charity was doing but they were two years behind with the grants that they had already approved which begs the question as to why they were still accepting new applications.

Just a couple of local charities for me, I do think CiN enables us to see projects we would never hear of otherwise.

I never give to TV fund raising and try to check how much the CEOs of charities are paid. There is a charities commission and someone I know worked there said you’d never give if you knew what went on.
Fund raising for heart and cancer is good but why isn’t research carried out under the NHS?

It's complete personal choice as to who is supported.

Children In Need has grown and that means that they can help a range of people across the country and with a range of problems.

I don't think it drowns other charities out I think it highlights the importance of giving to causes that you feel passionate about.

I agree with Hilda. We are a small charity and CIN do so much to help us to help our local children. We are able to provide school holiday care for those most in need for the nominal sum of £4 a day including a hot, freshly cooked two course lunch and snacks. We couldn’t manage without CIN!

I don't think charities are getting "greedy" ..
i think the need for charity and charities is growing exponentially hence the oh so frequent requests...

children in need certainly is a massive fund raiser but it also tries very hard to include so many participants... and offer so many events ... it tries to touch all of us ... not just those in need of our charity ..

support what you can where you can is my motto... and in emergencies support again ....

Can I second everything that Jo1960 said. I also worked for Women's Aid as one of 2 'paid workers' the rest being volunteers or 'unpaid workers'. In addition to my paid work I put in more hours unpaid, filling in on On Call when no one else was available, going out in the night to pick up families or give support in the refuge when there was a problem. Also, spending free time researching and completing Grant Applications to CiN, The Lottery, etc. etc. with perhaps 1 in 3 applications proving successful. We would perhaps get a year's funding for an Outreach or Children's Worker but after 6 months, when that worker had built up experience and was doing a brilliant job, we had to start looking for further funding for the next year, often unsuccessfully because Funders prefer a 'New Project'

We also undertook our own local fundraising - stalls at carboots and Galas etc. a small thrift shop, etc. Also were often the nominated Charity at Christmas for some businesses, the Inner Wheel, churches, etc. This last source of income dried up completely when it became much easier for these donors to organise events and collections for CiN. Therefore I try my best to avoid donating to CiN (hard to avoid at times) preferring to donate directly to small local Charities where I know that ALL of the donation will be put to good use immediately.

I work for a tiny charity. It’s a Child Contact Centre, arranging contact for separated families who, for whatever reason, can’t make their own arrangements. I am the only paid employee, and I earn very little. We have no regular income and I have to fundraise every penny. I’ve applied in the past to CIN. Once we got through the first stage and I had to have a one hour telephone interview. We were then turned down. We can’t send photos etc as our service is confidential. It’s really hard trying to raise enough to keep us afloat. Our overheads aren’t high. But for this reason CIN annoys me because they have so much money, but I feel it’s unfair to keep so much in reserve when small charities are in such dire need. And the amount the executives in these large charities earn is disgusting.

I'd rather give to something like CiN than a charity who bombard you with costly coloured bumf sent through the post if you have donated to them just once. I throw away so many of these unopened- they even come in magazines etc.
Such a waste of their resources that should be spent on the needy.
I prefer to chose charities where the money is spent in this country where possible unless there is some sort of disaster.

My family each year do the Alzheimer’s memory walk because of their dad but trying to get sponsors is getting near impossible,they even had a local paper interview as they were all still young when it started with him but even then they raised just over £30

Only give to small local charities and ones like Shelterbox and Smalls for All. They seem better than the rest but I might be wrong.