There are so many charities in this country that the 'industry' is not at all efficient. High streets are littered with charity shops, which are positioned next to pawn shops, money-lending 'establishments' and boarded up premises. The landscape of town centres is now desolate. The actual aims of the numerous charities which run shops are now all secondary to eeking out some sort of existence. It is possible in many towns to go on a pub crawl, and it is equally possible to complete a 'charity shop crawl'. In fact, the number of stops on the latter will these days be exceeded, what with so many pubs closing as well.
Sponsorship, with people parachuting, climbing, swimming, cycling, walking and shaving, is rife. Nothing is done if it's not done for charity. The only shops that open are pound shops and charity shops (with the pound shops obviously being a lot cheaper!). The lottery is supposedly 'charitable', and we now have a Health Lottery which is more touting of charity. There are Sport Aid / Sport Relief / Red Nose / Children In Need / Christian Aid / Donkey Sanctuary and 1001 other bases for donating. All of this ignores the 'natural disasters' category, whether earthquake related, flood related or drought related. Overpriced phone calls and texts to enter competitions are commonly inflated to force through charitable donations as percentages, and every thrid fucking quiz show has a celebrity arsehole doing his or her bit for something or other - or more importantly, clogging up the TV schedules with poor quality shite. What with junk mail (and the costs of the production and posting of the stuff) and people in the streets being paid commission to tout direct debit sign-ups for good causes, there is nowhere to escape the relentless onslaught of charity.
No one dares speak up against charity, despite the suffocation of its obliteration of everything else. Well, I will speak up; not though against charity itself, but the number of separate organisations, the level of inefficiency permitted, the costs that are deducted before any fucker gets help, the OTT obsession with making people feel guilty for not donating, and the use of 'celebrities' to coerce donations. The methods used, the hoarding of money by the big charities (yes, millions is sitting in bank accounts, as some charities decide to look after themselves before handing out fucking anything) and the fact that there are well in excess of twenty thousand organisations with charitable status means the sector is a mess. On top of all this, is the fact that the UK government is able to reduce funding for things in so many areas, letting 'charity' pick up the pieces, and take on the responsibility for providing help and services. The government should be doing what half the fucking charities do; that's the idea of income tax, and the state managing affairs at a higher level for the common good!
Time are hard, and we now have competition amongst the charities. That's right, just as Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Tesco and Asda all compete in the supermarket sector (and even M&S has launched a cheaper range called 'Simply' which is still too expensive. NB: The Co-op is never competitive) we now have organisations desperate to get donations at the expense of other good causes. What a rat race, eh? There needs to be massive convergence in the charity sector; mergers, acquisitions and take-overs ought to be pushed, so that costs are cut, and more charitable stuff gets done. Instead, everyone is hanging on, and being inefficient. Madness.
As an aside, I want to know whether these organisations have gone international, or just like making their titles look better. Cancer Research is actually, on the local shop, signed as "Cancer Research UK" while Help The Aged has transformed to "Age UK". What's all this about? There's another shop that's called "Arthritis Reasearch UK" and it has the useful and helpful strapline underneath the larger letters, saying "providing answers today and tomorrow". What shit that is! I was going to make a joke about them 'bending over backwards' and would have thought that "we bend over backwards" would be a much better, funnier and appropriate strapline (if they have to have one) than the lame (oops, there I go again with tangential references and sarcasm) "providing answers today and tomorrow". For fucks sake, even the speaking clock does that!
There are two sets of charity shops - those with a more national presence and better known names, and then 'the rest', which are typically local entities, particularly hospice-related. I think the latter group has better justification for existence than the former. Those in the 'well-known' category are often doing work (supposedly) that should be done by the government or via the NHS, where billions and billions of pounds are spent. The better known shops will probably be in this list -
British Heart Foundation
British Red Cross
Salvation Army
Scope
Oxfam
Arthritis UK
Age UK
Kidney Research UK
Cancer Research UK
Save The Children UK
MS Society
Marie Curie Cancer Trust
Barnardos
RSPCA
Dogs Trust
PDSA
Sue Ryder Care
Traid
YMCA
Competing against all of these are hundreds of other 'independent' charity shops. The Charity Retail Association is a massive entity, and helps steer organisations. Unfortunately there are so many shops that they cannot all manage or survive, or do much good. We might as well have one charity department store in each town.
Anyway, there are far too many charities, which results in less charity! Madness.
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