Donation spent asking me for MORE money.

:shock: are you serious?

Never heard of the season of good will James!

The trouble is this is one of the ways they raise money to fund vital research and of course cover their overheads. Its a personal choice whether you choose to buy from the catalogue or not, but its hardly appropriate to suggest people follow suit and boycott the merchandise............ I think I will make my own mind up on this one thanks!

Nigel

According to DUKs financial statement in 2009 (not a good year), they spent 2.1m on trading and they had an income of 3.4m from trading, so seems that they made 1.3million from selling things. I would think that the brochure also acts as a timely reminder to people who might then donate or leave something in their wills.
By far the largest amount ot their income (78%) comes from donations (10m) and legacies (9. 5m) and membership 2.4m. Each pound spent on fundraising last year yielded £3.70 in income.

I doubt they would do as well if they cut out all the fund raising activities and associated staff and just left their money in the bank or invested it on the stockmarket. ("investment income was £743,000 in 2008, but largely due to the collapse in interest rates this dropped to £189,000 in 2009"; "investment portfolio made a gain of £547,000 in 2009 compared to a loss of £2.2m in 2008. This is broadly in line with the stock market.'')
So what's the alternative?
source http://www.diabetes.org.uk/Documents/Ab ... ts2009.pdf

HUMBUG! Innit!

Each to their own James.......however I for one won't be joining any boycott.......DUK do some excellent work and fundraisng is all going to pay for it. If they don't make any money who pays for the research and info ?

Why funding just research into Type 1.......I believe that research should be for the benefit of ALL Diabetic's....whatever type they are. Find a cure for us all not just one section..

I support DUK as a member and donations in whatever fundraisng ventures they want. I shall be buying any friends or relatives gifts I want to give them. I don't spend a fortune, most are just tokens of appreciation. My way of saying thanks for any help or support I may have had through the year.

I haven't seen the catalogue.......however this has to be down to personal choice. Me, I celebrate Xmas in lot's of different ways........giving is just a small part of it.

Ken

I just love Christmas! According to the Christmas countdown it's just 117 sleeps to go. Christmas Eve is my absolute favourite day of the year. Something magic about a child that truly believes on Christmas Eve.

I do take your point about these fundraising companies... A complete stranger knocks on my door and asks me an emotionally loaded question, the last one being "do you care about premature babies on life support" and wants me to hand over my bank details. I think not. If I give money to a charity it is to support the work of that charity and not a marketing company.

I do however think that if the charities can make money to support research by selling stuff people actually want to buy, then so they should.

And there was me thinking the Grinch only lived in the Dr Seuss books, but obviously I was wrong :roll: :? :lol:

James,
I am with you on this,for more reasons than for them being self-serving, . It amazes me that after years of "Diabetes Awareness" week, the medical profession are still so ignorant, and the majority of the public still clueless about the difference between type-1 and type-2; Diabetes Uk's campaigns do nothing to enlighten people :?
I was very ill and suffered dreadful side-effects on Lantus for over 4 years. I hadn't a clue Lantus was causing my illness, and naively contacted the Diabetes Uk during that period with no joy. Having since discovered the information in this link http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Diabetics-Not-Told.htm , I want nothing more to do with them and consequently didn't renew my membership. I would love to donate to research but not through Diabetes UK
Jus
ps I should have pointed out that Diabetes Uk were previously called the BDA (British Diabetic Association) Renamed & re-branded in 2000

I feel similarly, not about this charity in particular, but many others I have sent small sums of money (I have a very low income) and have sighed in annoyance to find that more money than I ever sent has been spent sending me further letters asking for money.

Personally I cannot really understand the "event" element of charity either. Someone does a parachute jump, people give money. The jump doesn't raise any money, people raise the money. I object to giving to the person who rattles the loudest tin, or bullying into giving money to a cause that is large enough to have "a day" - all children in class 2a will bring £1 for Children in Need - why? I see other charities I would like to give my money to and I will give it by choice, not because Mrs Thingie has decided we will all give a pound, and then the SCHOOL will be thanked for their fundraising, not the parents who actually parted with the cash!

Of course, if you could specify you wanted to give but only if all the money were spent on specific projects and none went into begging letters then who would provide the money for the letters? Nobody. And some people don't see a charity until they see the loudest tin rattling in their faces. Many will give to ill-defined projects such as "help the sick children" - help them do what? Get better? Get equipment? Continue their education? I don't like to respond to articles saying give to Charity X because this starving child needs you if I know the charity also has other interests, as I may not actually help the starving child at all, so I tend to donate to small charities with specific interests and identifiable projects. But it's even harder to do that and not give £x a month (I don't have a reliable income) or be chased and chased for more money. I already gave what I can/want to give, if I had more you'd get it already, stop asking! It's just a waste of my donation to harrass me to give more.

ok there is a lot of friction on charities and some of it with good reason ,i was offered a 4x4 brand new for £3000 so i said whats the catch he said they are painted orange and have an obscure name but the running gear is vw as it goes they were made for a very big charity and something went wrong and they ended up on the market .no i did not buy it.

a bloke was sent out to africa, he worked for the same charity his brief was to buy enough trucks to carry the aid ,so a govenment repersentativ sells him trucks covescated from drug runners ,they were in an impound /short one is anything that was any good was removed by the locals, the cost then was appx 1 million to fix them up, a german mfg said they would have supplied new trucks for less.

I believe the law /regs on fund raisers is that if they raised say £1000 they would only have to give £100 to charity the other £900 disapears in expences / running costs /cars /houses/pensions whatever,pperhaps thats why they can afford to pay students minium wages to get credit card donations:

that said some charities do good work look at this one ,it has helped a lot of people !

Yes, you write don't some of but mostly more charity are really be helping more people for organize some event and camp for fund rising and they are really using this income for helping poor people and children and women also.

stavenmorris said:

Yes, you write don't some of but mostly more charity are really be helping more people for organize some event and camp for fund rising and they are really using this income for helping poor people and children and women also.

Click to expand...

Maybe it's to pay the Chief Executives huge salary or to pay the wages of the chuggers that bully you into paying a direct debit. It takes 3 years to recoup the money for their commission.

DUK recently cold called me to ask me to run for them in a half-marathon. I spent 20 minutes telling the woman that DUK would never receive a single penny of money from me while they carried on killing T2 diabetics with their stupid dietary advice.