Donations

[FAT-TOY]

  Most Aussies seem to be slow learners.  My wife and myself made, for us, a reasonable size donation to the Red Cross when we had the really bad floods a few years back, even after remembering that the Red Cross had not given out all of the millions given to them after Cyclone Tracy, instead squirreling it away for the future.
  Alas the same thing happened with the flood donations, only by a much greater amount. We thought the money we gave to the Red Cross, would be used to help the victims of the floods, it wasn't!   This time I didn't donate, because I thought they will probably do the same thing again.  Money given to help the poor bastards who in many cases have lost every thing they owned.  Well surprise, they have, but this time it's far more outrages. They have, to date received more than (90 million dollars) in donations and only plan on spending less than a third of that (thirty million dollars), keeping the balance for other projects.
   Even worse than that, they are not the only ones doing it.  On the radio today there is a protest against others as well, including The Smith Family and The Salvos.  Don't these charities know that when (rightly or wrongly) donations are made for a specific thing they should be spent on that, not just put in the bank for future use.   I know that I am pissed off about it and by the sounds of it so are many others.  I suppose we will see when we have the next disaster, will we remember or not.
     Zane 

[Wasp]

You are absolutely right , it is so wrong what they are doing . Like you, I have given up years ago with charities , because exactly as you say , they do it for profits. I rather give to the local CFS  and what I have done also is carting hay with my tipper for local people that got burned . That way I see where my donation goes and you also get involved in the real world   . And if everybody did the same Australia wide ( supporting the local ) we would not need those greedy organisations. That is my view anyway .

[pokey]

And 100% legal for them to do so.
Most who donate dont realise the funds are stockpiled and the funds are not directly issued. The charity uses the funds to pay for advertising to increase the income. Its like investing $10 to hopefully make $50. There are places like the Lions who dont do this but they donate to the big charities as they have specialised people employed to distribute the funds as its a huge job.
It on the surface appears immoral but when you understand why they do it it makes sense. I believe the charities should be better at disclosing that they dont intend of putting your $10 directly to the cause they are collecting for.

[Mick D]

SO FINALLY THE RED CROSS HAS SOME SERIOUS BUCKS DUE TO THEM IMPLEMENTING

"THE EMERGENCY BUSHFIRE APPEAL"
I understand your explanation Pokey and agree with it somewhat,                                                                     
even to the extent that administration staff must be paid wages etc.

BUT, what I would like is for the RED CROSS to make transparent exactly what amount of those donations
will be used OVERSEAS instead of the being used for the intention they were donated for, HERE,
Afterall, I for one assumed they meant THE EMERGENCY AUSTRALIAN BUSHFIRE APPEAL 

[Butcher]

australian law says that money donated becomes the property of the "charity". they can do with it as they please. More fool the people who didn"t  know the law. I certainly didnt give the god botherers any money. I donate my hard earned to farmers every week buying the stock to run my shop and by riding vtr events in the country and buying lunch of the service clubs. Just sayin......