Sweet Charideeeee

I don't like charities. Well, I don't like big charities.

In my distant youth, I consulted to a charity in Africa on technology. It was filled with genuinely kind, well-meaning, nice people. I also had the pleasure of working alongside a guy who had been incarcerated at Robben Island for even longer than Nelson Mandela. He was such a nice, gentle guy, I really couldn't understand what had inspired him to go round planting bombs and killing people.

I digress.

This was a small charity, that struggled for funding. They did something useful, namely micro-lending. They funded small groups of people with seed capital and relied on group peer pressure to keep the repayments up. It worked pretty well, they got lots of people going and they made a lot of difference to a lot of people.

But there are some other, larger charities out there, and I can't help but wonder about their motives and their drivers. I mean, how the hell can the NSPCC afford to saturate television channels with adverts asking for £3 a month? Why the hell are chuggers fucking paid commission on the money they soak out of passersby? Why do some charities make a big fuss about not getting government funding, like the RSPCA? (I know, it's to soak more money out of you and me!) And what the fuck is the government doing, dishing out money to charities?

Well, it turns out that what the government is doing, is this:

We've often blogged how many supposed "charities" are so dependent on state funding they are in reality little more than quangos (see previous blogs, eg here and here).

According to the Charities Commission, around two-thirds of the larger charities now get 80% or more of their income from government (eg Barnardos is 78% state funded - and now run by an ex-civil servant to boot - with NCH and Leonard Cheshire both on 88%).

Fucking hellski, if I might borrow a phrase from some other cunt.

So, the government is taking MY MONEY and using it to fund things I might not give a rat's arse about, is it? Like, oh, I don't know:

[persuading] the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh to protect the rare Jerdon’s courser, a project that includes the diversion of a major canal. Ian Barber, the RSPB’s Asia Officer, says:

"It is crucial we find other sites hosting Jerdon’s coursers and encourage both politicians and the people living nearby to support that work."

No problem at all with the RSPB doing that, but is it really "crucial" in the sense of being something we want our taxes spent on? And should British taxpayers ever be in the business of political campaigning inside another sovereign country? How would we react if the situations were reversed?

It turns out the RSPB has a raft of overseas projects, from acquiring the concession licence for 53,000 ha of Sumatran rainforest, to managing aquatic warbler habitat in Poland

What the FUCK? Using £20 million of my tax money, without even fucking telling me?

You cheeky fuckers! How many schoolzanospitals would that be then?

And what about all the highly-paid staff, riding on the back of volunteers' efforts and private donors, just so that they can suckle at the teat of the government for the real money?

But the real shocker comes when you delve into that Charities Commission report:

Charities are set up to pursue worthy objectives, which are most unlikely to square with those of our elected politicos. But once they take the Queen's shilling, they have to play the politicos' tune. The Charity Commission survey found that three-quarters of those doing so are put under pressure to do what the politicos want

In other words, more unaccountable fuckknuckles sticking their beaks into our business, fucking us around and wasting our money.

Don't fall for the chuggers' bullshit, folks. If you're going to chuck money at a charity, make fucking sure you know where it's going, because most of these cunts are just extensions of the political class that is fucking this country into a cocked hat.

Vote Libertarian and make charities back into charities.

Update: As if by magic:

Shelter, one of the few organisations backing the plan to build new towns in the English countryside, said it had been given £100,000 by the Government to publish a series of 13 pamphlets, one for each proposed eco-town site.

Called "Eco-town – the facts", the publications are branded with the Shelter logo and claim to assess the impact the new homes will have in the different areas. Each one begins: "Shelter has written a series of leaflets to help clarify the facts."

But each 20-page leaflet focuses largely on the need for more affordable housing, with only one paragraph addressing such concerns as traffic levels, flood risks and pressure on public serices.

Opponents called the leaflets "Government propaganda" and accused ministers of trying to mislead the public into thinking the information came from an independent source.

Ya think?!

Update 2: Here is an example of someone doing what they want to do with their own money:

A British woman has paid 1.5 million pounds in a charity auction to fly with the Royal Air Force's aerobatic Red Arrows display jets, the Help for Heroes charity said on Monday.

"We are speechless," the RAF said in a statement after Heselden's bid at the Heroes' Ball on Friday, a fundraiser for the HFH charity which provides support for servicemen and women injured in the line of duty.

"We know it is a special prize -- a once in a lifetime opportunity -- but we are all astounded that someone could be so generous," the RAF said.

Funny, though. I'd have thought that the government would be taking care of those they send to die on foreign shores, rather than them having to rely on the kindness of strangers. I can't see why Jerdon's coursers would take priority.