Volunteer or Scrounger?

I’m still unclear on some of the comments. I do give a lot of items that are no longer of use to me to local charity shops. I am happy to think that these items can be reused and money can be made from them.
If a voluntary worker takes first dibs then do I need to worry? Not really, I was done with it and money was made.
I do volunteer but not in a money making area, I would never judge others motives but whatever they get out of it long may volunteers keep working.

I used to work in my local Hospice shop (only stopped because I moved 100 miles away).

Everything had to be priced and on the rails/shelves in the shop before a volunteer could buy. The majority of things came priced and barcoded from the central sorting point; anything else was priced by the manager.

At the end of the shift, we would pay another volunteer for anything we'd bought; it was then logged with the till number in a book and countersigned by the manager.

There was no scope for cheating the charity, not that it would have occurred to me to do so. Apparently, in the olden days a 20% discount was given to volunteers, and some of them regretted that that had stopped.

My biggest bugbear were the customers who complained our prices were too high. Who doesn't love a bargain? but expecting good quality items for jumble sale prices was annoying.

Most food banks will have at least one salaried worker. Perhaps the person in question is in one of these roles.

I was quietly impressed when someone close to me said she was working in a food bank. I later discovered she was being paid. So sad.

I used to volunteer for a charity shop which sold "ethnic" clothes in an Asian area. My job was to unpack the stock and hang it up ready to be priced. There were some beautiful fabrics and embroideries (saris, and similar) and every session I used to pick several items for myself and show them to the manager, She would give me a price and I handed over the money and left. I dont recall the purchases ever being rung up on the till but she was manager and it was upto her to make the rules. I dont know what the other volunteers did as I was not on the shop floor. But I was certainly getting first dibs on anything that came in before it went out to the public.I certainly dont think it was dishonest or scrounging as I paid what was asked.

We are discussing it, not reporting it here.

It's a discussion forum.

Reporting it on here will not change anything, contact head office and tell them what goes on.

My brother recently had a clear out and took a large number of items to a local charity shop.
He'd included a large number of dvd's... quite specific in nature.
A few days later he was in the shop actually buying something and while waiting to pay overheard the volunteers talking about the films that one had taken for a relative and it was totally clear from the conversation that they hadn't been paid for.
Yes, people give their time freely but personally for me, it's stealing.

They are scroungers and it makes me so mad to think about it.

Exactly.

mae13 mentioned Save the Children. On its website is explains that £5 could provide antibiotics to treat 5 children with pneumonia each month or 40 water purification tablets or 30 malnutrition food sachets or 3 midwife’s birth kits.

Everytime someone lifts item(s) that could be sold for £5 they are reducing the amount of money that could be used to save children’s lives.

Look at most charity websites and they will tell you what even a small donation could pay for.

Nobody should be working in a charity shop for their own personal gain and who doesn’t have the charity's aims at heart.

As ever, it's down to good management and employing the right staff, just like any business.

People tend not to like underhand dealings.
I certainly don't donate items so that ladies who give their time can have it cheaply.

I donate things I might not, except for the the thought that they will help a needy cause.

Hm. I am seeing a lot of moral high ground being taken. I’m pretty sure if people Voluntarily working in these charity shops were told they were NOT able to make purchases they would still freely give their time.
Sometimes there could be some jealousy, there must be some psychology behind it.

I totally get what you're saying and I agree with you 100%.

Some years ago, in between doing paid jobs for other companies, I worked for various charities as a shop manager/assistant manager/supervisor and I trained volunteers with special needs and the disabled and elderly, the amount of scrounging that went on with a lot of volunteers was awful, they were basically stealing donated goods.

One of my volunteers was an ex-charity shop manager herself, she managed that shop before I took over, then she became a volunteer at the same shop. She was obsessed with bathroom things so as soon as any beauty stuff and shampoo, decent bathroom mats and towels etc. was donated she literally lifted the lot and put it in her own bags. From what she told me she ''had a bathroom overflowing'' with such things.

Another in another shop was obsessed with Mills & Boon books, we put them on sale for only 30p each paperback and 40p hardback. Before we managed to get them out of her hands to price and put them out for sale, she'd snatch the lot then read through them and scribble out any sexual words/phrases in black ink but she loudly announced she hates any sort of porn, she'd damage them by blotting out and she'd sit there reading them all the time instead of volunteering so of course because they were damaged I couldn't sell them. She also volunteered with the shop directly next door and did the same there, but for some reason they worshipped her so let her get away with it while I gave her a mouthful and told her I'll have her done and sacked for theft if I ever see her do such things again AND she'll have to pay our shop full price for each item, as I threatened with the ''bathroom'' lady, reminding them both that those who were kind enough to donate things weren't donating to the staff for their own personal use, it was for the charities, so because of their arrogance, selfishness and thieving, the charities weren't getting the money and the customers weren't getting goods.

There were various other incidents too over the years.

Those sort don't go to volunteer, they just go to scrounge and scavenge and steal.

We had what we called ''sin bins'' in our staff quarters where if an item donated was a bit too damaged to sell, no matter what the item was, then it would be ''sinned'' and volunteers could help themselves to what they wanted as long as it was bought up in front of the manager/whoever was in charge at the time and the manager would then put it through the till as a staff discount.

I'd call it worse than "scrounging".

I repeat that I am not saying that the things in my post are typical - just that they bear out the experience of the OP.

The whole ethos of volunteering is that a person gives their time freely for no reward of any monetary value.

If volunteers are taking stock they are stealing. It’s no different to a paid employee of an organisation helping themselves. They should be subject to a warning or dismissed.

If a manager is allowing this behaviour, they should be fired too.

Just before Christmas I was in our local charity shop, where one of the volunteers ( off hand at the best of times) was buying a large amount of boxed, good condition articles. Presumably for gifts. The quantity and type were unlikely to have just been on the shelves, but looked as if they’d been ‘gathered’.
The volunteer on the till totted them up and asked for £35. The purchaser then asked for staff discount! The volunteer on the till responded that over £40 had to be spent for staff discount.
Now anything that I have to donate either goes to clothing the homeless, or to other specific charity causes.

There are one or two volunteers in the charity shop where I volunteer who take advantage, coming into the shop when they’re not working, helping themselves to a cuppa and biscuits, then looking through clothes etc. which have not yet gone on display. However, the managers are aware of this and deal with it diplomatically. If I buy something, then decide it’s not right for me, I return it, but wouldn't ask for a refund. I’m also a gift aider, so my donations are a generous contribution. Plus the fact that I so enjoy working with a bunch of lovely people. 😊

I volunteered in a Save The Children shop - some of the staff treated it like a free lucky dip.

Doodledog my BIL was also asked if he would be “back with more”. My SIL died 2 years ago and he had to dispose of literally thousands of knitting patterns, expensive knitting magazines and a room FULL of craft books in pristine condition for knitting, crochet, patchwork, embroidery etc.

He took the first boot full and the ladies were overjoyed. When he went with the next load they asked if there was more to come as it was so popular and sold really well that they would clear an area and make a special craft corner. He didn’t mind a bit being asked.

The Charity shop I volunteered at had a strict rule that goods had to be on the shop floor for 24 working hours before a Volunteer was allowed to buy it for the label price, all price tags were dated.

Not a lot of people know this but legally, a charity is obliged to offer the donor the proceeds from the sale of goods that have been donated (less a sales commisson plus VAT).

Few people are every likely to want to claim and if the donor hasn’t registered for Gift Aid, the receiving shop won’t have any way of contacting them.

Strictly, shops should be collecting the contact details of all donors and telling them how much their goods have raised but it would be a huge administrative task. For the most part it’s assumed that the reason people donate goods is to raise money for the cause.

But if a donor wanted to know what a particular item had been sold for that would be the route of enquiry to go down.

If anyone is concerned about what is going on in a charity shop, they have a right to complain - to the shop or to the charity’s head office in the frst instance - then to the Funding Regulator if the complaint cannot be resolved.

www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk/complaints/make-complaint

The shop my bags went to was the ‘boutique’ branch of a chain, which is why I chose it, as the bags were good ones.

I’m not saying that all charity shops are the same - I know that people on here have said that theirs are not like the one where my mum worked (in support of a local hospice). I also don’t know if my bags sold for a fair price or to the staff - just that the assistants asked my husband when he’d be back with more.

I know for sure that things were creamed off by staff where my mum worked though - as I say, they saw nothing wrong with it and were very open about it.

Yes our charity shop is exactly as you describe Tinsoldier
Ours runs very professionally and a lot of our goods and books do go on eBay we have dedicated people working on those
We have a chain of 46 shops and some will sell more expensive labels so what sells at one shop may not be what came in through the doors