Volunteer or Scrounger?

Sorry Doodledog, my post was overly harsh, no disrespect intended to your mum and other volunteers who were told that was the system, remembering a few 'chancers' from my past led to me being a right judgy-pants.

A friend's daughter donated several bags full of virtually new designer clothing and shoes - she has an excellent salary. She registered for gift aid and was astounded to receive an email some months later telling her that the amount raised was around twenty five pounds. Clearly something had gone badly wrong - each item must have raised only around fifty pence, and after several approaches to the charity HQ and no response, she decided to sell any unwanted clothes on ebay and give the cash to a local charity.

This thread makes me very sad. I remember donating some unwanted Christmas presents to a charity shop and wondered why I never saw the items on display, but just assumed they had been bought very quickly. Perhaps they were grabbed by a staff member.
I volunteer with the local food bank. Some of the items we receive are donated by the local Tesco and include items past thir best before date such as bread or pastries and even bunches of flowers. If they haven't been taken by the end of the afternoon they are offered to the volunteers as we only open twice a week so they wouldn't keep 'til the next session. I wouldn't dream of taking anything that was wanted by the needy clients but have taken the odd loaf or bunch of slightly tired flowers that would otherwise go in a bin.

i worked in a large salvation army shop, there was a manger and two full time paid staff, clothes and bedding got sorted downstairs and then we priced them upstairs in a large back shop, everything had to be tagged and dated with set prices for blouses, skirts etc, we stood round a high table dong this then hung on racks to be steamed, i am a quick person and would fill and send out a rack every hour, some of the other volunteers only really came in to stand and chat (that was fine with me) but i wanted to work, i was told off several times by other volunteers to slow down, the first day i started the manager told me if anything came to be priced and i wanted it then i could take it, she said it was her way of saying thank you, with such a big shop. she could not run it without volunteers and a few times it had to close for the day, a couple of times she called me to come in and serve as a member of staff had taken ill. some of these shops can't run without volunteers so it is there way of saying thanks and it would cost them a lot more to have paid staff.

keepcalmandcavachon

The people who do the mate's rates/ keeping things back would also be the ones who'd possibly put less than the going rate in the honesty box at a roadside veg stall -they're a 'certain type'.
Probably quite entitled and unaware, definitely would assume that everyone else is out for themselves. Met a quite a few over time (not just when volunteering)

I can understand you thinking like that, and up to a point I agree; but I don't think my mum falls into that category, and from what I hear, neither do her colleagues - not really. They were told that was the system when they signed up years ago, so they don't know any different. My mum didn't work after I was born, so wasn't used to anything in the workplace, and just took for granted that this was how things are done. She is very law-abiding, and as this is the 'law' in the charity shop, it is just the way it is. A bit like my father having a company car, or people getting bonuses.

A lot of people don't question rules. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it's true.

Our local Oxfam shop is small with not a lot of storage space and you actually have to book a slot to donate.
Each donation is gone through in your presence so woe betide you if it's grubby or broken.
There is a salaried manager and scores of volunteers.

I love to find a bargain but anything which looks like it's worth something is selected and sold to an antiques dealer. ;(

I disagree that charity shops are all about making money for the charity.
That's their main purpose but they are also a very important source of affordable clothes and household goods for poor people and a sociable community hub which helps prevent isolation for volunteers as well.

If we lost our charity shops, I'm not sure what we'd do.

The people who do the mate's rates/ keeping things back would also be the ones who'd possibly put less than the going rate in the honesty box at a roadside veg stall -they're a 'certain type'.
Probably quite entitled and unaware, definitely would assume that everyone else is out for themselves. Met a quite a few over time (not just when volunteering)

I cross-posted petra. I wasn't contradicting your post, just saying what is the case where I live.

I agree with a lot of what you say, TinSoldier, and would add that the idea that charity shops are doing people a favour by taking things off our hands may heave been true when they would collect, or would accept assorted goods and sort through them themselves is a bit outdated. That used to be true, but now, for all sorts of reasons it is not the case. My High Street has a few charity shops, but none of them collect, some won't take books, others won't take electrical items. None take furniture, and so on. Two have specific days when they will take donations and turn them away on other days. Some want clothing sorted into types, with shoes paired and clipped together, and so on. I am fully aware that there are operational reasons for the restrictions, but a combination of them means that donors can't easily follow the advice of decluttering and simply bag things as 'chuck', 'keep' donate'. They have to be carefully sorted, taken to the shop (not necessarily easy for those without cars or shops with parking near enough to lug heavy bags) and timed to arrive on particular days with specified goods.

Donating is not as easy as it was, and as has been mentioned, there are other outlets for better quality items. The decision is with the donor as to whether giving to a shop is going to yield more than the profit on a Vinted sale. Knowing that there is a good chance that the items won't even make it to the shop floor might not be a consideration if you only want the things out of the house to save you going to the tip, but if you really want to help the charity it is not unreasonable to assume that they will be sold at whatever the local market expects for second hand goods.

Tanjamaltija

It is understood that those who help out get a discount - but not freebies. In return, they sort / wash /mend / clean items, and keep the shop clean. This is only fair, I think a barter system of sorts, because they could have stayed home and watched television...

That would be me. I take home clothes to be washed. I do the repairs. I take online sold goods to the post office.
Where a customer buys say a whole tea/ dinner service and has no transport, I deliver it.
We have a lady who makes cushions for us. We strip down duvets for the filling which she uses. I deliver that.
No one is paid in our shop. We have sole discretion as to cost.
We are in a poor area and do give some goods for free.
When we get an overload of children/ baby clothes I take them to a local food bank. They are free.

hubby worked a night shift in a well known DIY shop ( 20 yrs ago now) . The night shift did the markdowns and the staff could get first dibs on any goods at the marked-down price before they went out on the shop floor. They were not allowed staff discount on sale items but hubby did come home with a few bargains over the years.

As I have already said, only of the items have already been put out for the general public.

Even a small shop may have a volunteer workforce of maybe 60 or more people. Many elderly volunteers only want to work half a day shift. Being on your feet all day is tough.

If you want two people out back sorting, labelling, ironing etc and two out front, till, rack and shelf replenishment, changing room duty etc you need eight staff per day x six days a week plus back-ups for holidays and other absences.

If you have sixty people of all shapes and sizes taking first dibs on stock before it goes out, it serious depletes the stock available to the public.

If you ascribe to the philosophy that charity shops provide an opportunity for people with lower incomes to buy, then allowing a first dibs policy is effectively denying those people the opportunity to see the full range of saleable donations - and that isn’t right or fair.

I think the arrival of eBay in 1995, Vinted in 2008 and other online outlets for sellers plus the growth of Primark, IKEA and similar cheap retailers has put the charity shop sector in a difficult position over pricing.

Too expensive and people say they can buy new goods cheaper; too cheap and shops become the haunt of people looking for goods they can sell on for personal profit. And that isn’t right either if donors give expecting goods sold on their behalf to raise as much money as possible for the cause.

If I can see that a shop has a maximum price policy, whether it’s £5 or £10, I simply won’t donate quality items to them. I’d rather sell them on eBay for the proper market value and donate the cash; or send them to Oxfam online who do price sensibly.

Again, returning to the Mary Portas series, it was clear that elderly staff at Save the Children did not know one label from another and would put a current season Jimmy Choo handbag on the shelf for £5. Rich pickings for sombody.

Big charities all have heads of retailing and area managers. I do wonder what they think their job is - whether they think they have any responsibility at all for training staff, brand awareness or even what the law is on charitable donations.

To be clear: The charity has a legal obligation to offer the donor the right to claim the proceeds of sale. On that basis how does it explain that goods that were donated to be sold have been given away?

Hopefully, matters have improved in the fifteen years since the series but from the variety of posts here, it seems that practice is far from standard and the goodwill of donors is being abused.

I don’t see a problem with people buying to sell. Or of staff buying items. My only issue (not a tizz ) is with items being creamed off cheaply before actual customers get a chance to even see them.

That doesn’t mean that I am too stupid to understand that volunteers are giving their time, that they are difficult to come by or anything else. It just means that I think the donors give with one expectation and sometimes that is not what happens.

No problem with that, either.
If someone wants to put in the extra effort of reselling, then good for them.

I see nothing wrong in re-selling items bought in a charity shop if you have paid the asking price. When I was more mobile I often did a tour of the charity shops in my area and came away with a bag full of stuff. I paid the same price as everyone else. I just have a good eye for what will sell elsewhere. My stock comes from many different sources. The items have to be cleaned, photographed, priced and described. That takes time and effort and is a cost to me. They dont get onto Ebay of their own volition.

I don't see a problem with staff getting a small, preset discount, if they are too hard up to pay a couple of pounds more (!) but maybe only once items have been put out in the shop for a week or two.

I don't really see an issue with volunteers having items and paying the same as a customer would pay. It's the same amount of money going to charity. I don't think the volunteers should get a discount.

I had a friend whose daughter bought named items e.g. white stuff, joules, from a local charity shop and then sold them online for much more than she paid for them.

I think the person marking the items up didn't appreciate the original value of the items.

Having said that, I have seen Asda t-shirts for sale (second hand) in charity shops for the same price as they are new.

Maybe they should take more care/do some research on the original value of items.

People who are complaining give away their clothes and bric a brac to help.

For me, it would be a lot easier to bin them, but I don't.

WonderBra

I really hope that none of the thousands of kind volunteers who work in these shops read the vitriol and accusations in this post. It may be that there are charity shops where some take advantage of getting first pick, but the people on here are so judgmental. Bearing in mind, if these people had to be paid rather than volunteer it would cost those charities huge amounts of money - even at minimum wage, the average working day would be £80.
As someone who has relied on grants from charities, I am so grateful to these people who give up their precious time to work for free in these places. I appreciate how hard they work, they're often treated in the same way that paid retail staff would be (in that they're expected to work a certain number of hours per week minimum, have to pay parking / transport etc, have to do the dull parts of the job as well as the more fun, social stuff).
Much of the research around cancer diagnosis, treatment and care, Heart disease, Alzheimer's disease is funded by charity grants - the government funding is very low, so we have to thank these people hugely for the time they give that allows the research to save our loved ones.
Maybe those of you complaining should look at wheat you do to help?

perfect awareness post, people have no idea how hard it is to get committed volunteers.

My son ha an obsession with trainers, hardly a week goes by the he doesn’t purchase a new pair. They’re all the latest editions but he refuses to wear them if or when they get even the tiniest amount of dirt on them. I regularly take bags full of shoes to one of our local charity shops and there is one volunteer in particular has called her own son to come down to the shop whilst I’m still there, which is fine as long as they’re paying the shop for them. I even bumped into them in a local shop and she asked if I had any new donations because her son was looking for a particular style, needless to say I take them to a different shop as I don’t believe the charity is getting the money for them as I got a letter from the charity stating a very small amount of money had been raised via my gift aid.

Why are you shouting? No, I haven’t reported my mum’s friends for adhering to the system into which they were inducted when they started in their volunteer roles. Not do I intend to. Which is my prerogative I believe?

I helped out as a volunteer in a Salvation Army charity shop and happily saw no scrounging.

I did however see lots of very rude customers holding things up and asking in a demanding voice if I had this in a size 16 ?

Most volunteers are sincere I think.

I volunteer in a charity shop and my shop is nothing like the shop the op mentioned . We have to pay for any items we want , although we do get a small discount , many pay the full price.
We are allowed to buy things which haven’t gone on the shop floor yet. But aren’t allowed to keep things to one side for family or friends .
Any items bought by staff and volunteers goes through the till and is witnessed by other volunteers or staff .
Unsaleable items can be given to staff and most of us put a few quid in the charity box.
I certainly don’t agree with staff taking things without paying and I haven’t witnessed this in my shop .
The general public doesn’t realise that a lot of donations aren’t saleable . Until I worked in a charity shop , I didn’t realise the rubbish that people donate. People use charity shops as a dumping ground.
Donors come in with bags of donations and tell us that’s there’s lots of good stuff in there and there often isn’t . Items are dirty, worn, tatty or broken and go into the rag or book bag . So if you don’t see your donation in the shop it may not have been in decent condition. Or has been put in the beck room ready to go out at a later date . Or if it was out of season items, it would have gone into storage.
Your donation not being on the shop floor doesn’t necessarily mean a volunteer has snaffled it .

I'm not surprised at all by the reported goings-on in a subset of such shops. My friend helps run the local village hall, and at various times assorted items get pinched, or things get broken and not reported. Sadly, a certain proportion of the general public are just like that.

What I can't fathom is the people reporting that regrettable behaviour (like the OP), and it may have happened for years. HAVE YOU alerted the national management of those shops to what is happening?? If they don't know, they cannot do anything -- too logical?

Barbadosbelle

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About five+ years ago a friend applied for a job as Manager at a leading Charity Shop (paid position). She was well qualified as she had been the Manager of a leading Ladies clothes store but wanted to work more locally. I can’t recall the name of the Charity now, but a major one not local.

During the course of the interview she queried whether the Manager would have flexibility on pricing and was told emphatically “No. The listed price for garments is the price”.

She asked - “So, if a man came in who was obviously quite poor but needed smart clothes for an interview and was interested in a suit that you price at £25 but could only afford £15, I couldn’t use my judgement and sell it to him for £15 to help him?”
“No”. she was told.

She stopped the interview and said she wasn’t interested as she might just as well work in a high-street clothes shop that would offer better conditions, pay and benefits. So that’s what she did and where she still is.

I don’t know if all major Charities operate in this uncharitable way.

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That is a good point, charity shops rarely give clothes for free or discounted to those in need.