Comments on: Charity

By: Cowen Urged to Copy Greens at Irish Election

Cowen Urged to Copy Greens at Irish Election — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 14:57:52 +0000

[...] Coincidence? Great minds think alike? Or a rip-off? Or last bell to the ball? It seems to come from this guy. This issue was raised on Irish Election back in September. [...]

By: simon

simon — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 09:13:54 +0000

Hold on Simon, does that mean that the individual card holder would have the right to nominate a charity that the stamp duty would go to?
I think that is what the greens are saying

By: Mark Dowling

Mark Dowling — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 20:01:34 +0000

Here’s another suggestion – abolish the ridiculous card tax. It’s the b@stard child of stamp duty on cheques which should have been abolished not extended. It’s a stealth tax and regressive to boot.

By: WorldbyStorm

WorldbyStorm — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 15:54:06 +0000

Hold on Simon, does that mean that the individual card holder would have the right to nominate a charity that the stamp duty would go to? If so it does, as you note, beg a number of questions. What if one doesn’t want to donate to a charity but would prefer it to go to the state? Is that an option?

By: Damian

Damian — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 15:52:08 +0000

For a self professed libertarian there’s a bit of the centralising stalinist about what you’re saying.

As Keith points out, most overseas charites have ‘administration’ costs significantly less than 20% as a quick check on their websites will show. But even this figure is somewhat misleading as a large proportion of the ‘admin’ costs is often fundraising expenditute – the business of trying to raise the much needed money in the first place. And, for me, an operating profit of 500% or even 900% (which in commercial terms what spending 10% on admininstration and fundraising amounts to) is absolutely fine.

There’s also the fact that each of the charities you mention have a different approach and focus, work in different areas and on different projects. A large number of charities gives donors the choice to support the ones they feel are doing the best work, in the most effcetive and efficient way.

By: Keith

Keith — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 11:58:10 +0000

Actually, Concern, Goal and Trocaire each have admin overheads significantly lower than 20%.
And Concern and Trocaire are both part of international networks of aid agencies who work together. Concern’s group, Alliance 2015, is less tightly bound than Trocaire’s group, Caritas (which is part of the Catholic Church), but there is still significant cooperation. For example, after the tsunami, Concern were sharing offices and administration costs with the German agency Deutsch Welt Hungerhilfe (German Agro Action) in Banda Aceh.
In terms of the use of having many charities, most of them actually specialise in the field. For example, Oxfam UK are known as the WatSan (water & sanitation) experts. It allows specialisation to some degrees.