Got a call today from someone on behalf of Bowel Cancer Australia. Now I am a great fan of charitable donations, but I have recently become more aware of the sorts of things that go on in the world, so I approached this with some skepticism. Firstly I suspect that "on behalf of" means he doesn't actually work or volunteer for BCA, but I forgot to ask. At least he did say that it was not a solicited call and they were calling everyone in my area, so I decided to hear him out. Got the usual spiel that you get from all of these charity calls. The good work they do, the terrible nature of the things they're working against, and then please select which amount you would like to contribute. Ah. So no question about whether I'd like to contribute, only options that involve me giving them money.
I ignored the question and asked if they have some sort of income statement so I can inspect their finances and so on. Meanwhile I navigated to their website to see if I could find such a document. My search came up empty. He said they used to send that stuff out but not any more, to save money. He again gave me all the different donation options, none of which were "$0". They receive no ongoing government funding. OK so, apparently they have received some money from the government. And they lobby the government to send out more free bowel cancer testing kits to everyone over 50. At this time I again asked about the finances so I was bounced up to the supervisor, because the guy I'd been talking to was on his first day.
The supervisor informed me that they fund research into bowel cancer, lobby the government for more free testing kits to be sent out, and provide support services for people with bowel cancer. How much do these testing kits cost, which are available in pharmacies? $36. Now the question on my mind was, why not simply get GPs to get their patients to buy these kits if they are over 50? $36 really isn't a huge expense, and it's only once a year. I didn't voice that particular opinion, though. I next asked where the government gets these kits they say should be distributed free. He didn't know. I was suspecting that they might be the manufacturer and so getting the government to send out more kits would make them money. Cynical, I know, but you have to be sure. "Don't they just get them from the manufacturer?" Again, he didn't know, but he did offer to send the information out to me.
That was the most I could get from them at that time. I look forward to reading the email to find out if they would be a worthy recipient of my money, but given that they are lobbying the government to spend tax money providing free kits, I strongly suspect I will not be moved by their cause. Perhaps if they instead used their income to buy kits and send them free of charge to people over 50 who are on very low incomes or in some other way would not be able to buy the kits themselves, and sending letters to GPs informing them of the benefits to their patients and getting the patients to buy the kits themselves, then I might consider sending them a few bucks. But the fact that they consider it a good use of their donors' money to lobby the government to spend other people's money makes me ... er ... not like them very much. At all. Sort of the opposite, really.
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One of the nice things about charity law in the UK is that they all have to put their accounts in the public domain via the Charity Commission's website. This makes it pretty easy to find out which charities are really about charity, freely given donations and so on, and which are really vocal groups who are paid with taxpayers' money by the government to lobby the government to do things that probably it's quietly made up its mind to do anyway. Some actually do do good work but let themselves down by doing it with money forcefully taken rather than freely given. Doesn't seem to be anything like it here although I know charities' and non-profits' books are supposed to be open. No doubt they are but it'd be handy if they were all in one place.
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