Which charity should I donate to?
With so many good causes jostling for our attention and support, it can be a tough decision choosing which to donate to. The latest government statistics put the number of registered charities in the UK at approximately 168,000, each with their own mission. As one of the most charitable countries in the world, the UK donates over £10 billion to charitable organisations every year. Given this vast amount, it’s important that we each spend some time deciding where we should direct our money. With this in mind, we’ve created a useful guide on how to know which charity to donate to.
Values
If you donated to each charity you came across, you’d likely be bankrupt before you knew it. A good first step in deciding what charity to donate to is to spend some time clarifying which causes are most aligned with your own values. You might be eager to protect the environment or animal rights, or you may wish to address social issues such as homelessness or drug abuse in your local area. Perhaps if you or a loved one has suffered from a particular condition, you could donate to a charity that deals specifically with it – cancer alone has approximately 620 organisations dedicated to it, accounting for different forms of the disease and those it affects including patients’ family and friends.
Legitimacy
Once you’ve pinned down your cause and which charities most align to it, it’s time to check their legitimacy. According to a report from the Charitable Aid Foundation, trust in charities in the UK is on the decline. One of the reasons behind this could be the prevalence of fake charities in the UK – it has been estimated that legitimate charities lose out to fraud to the tune of around £2 billion annually. The depravity of the scammers seems to know no bounds – in the immediate wake of both the Grenfell Tower fire and the Manchester bombings, multiple fake websites were set up to collect donations and many people were dupped into handing over money. The easiest way to check the legitimacy of a charity is simply to search on the UK government’s charity register.
Effectiveness
Now you’ve whittled down the thousands of charities to a handful of legitimate organisations whose causes you strongly believe in, the next step is to consider their effectiveness – you’ll want to make sure that your hard-earned money is being put to good use. As a general rule of thumb, the smaller the charity, the more of your donation goes towards providing the service for which it exists. Larger charities are more likely to have greater overheads) – more staff, bigger offices, and more complex operations will all use up some of your donation, leaving less going to the actual charitable service. On the surface this may seem like a reason not to donate to larger organisations. Though it might seem counterintuitive to donate money that you know will be siphoned off into things like admin costs, it’s important to remember that these are vital functions. Ultimately, larger charities are more likely to affect change on a greater scale than smaller organisations. If you’d like to dig into the details, charities with income over £500,000 are required to state how much they put into providing their services – just search on the government’s charity register for their breakdown.
Making the best impact
Following these simple steps, we hope you’ll be confident in deciding which charity to donate to. Whether you sign up to a regular subscription or make a one-off payment through one of our innovative contactless donation units, your donation will be making a difference.
Here at GoodBox, we’re helping charities like the Teenage Cancer Trust and the Saracens Sport Foundation move with the times and modernise how they collect donations. Carrying cash is becoming a thing of the past and people are relying more than ever on contactless cards. Our simple, safe tap-to-give contactless card devices ensure that your donations go directly to your favourite charity, and can be used in various locations – from street collections to whacky fundraising events. To find out more, explore our success stories or get in touch with our helpful team.
