Is the charity system working?

 

I am indebted to Ankesh Kothari for this insight into a few of the difficulties it can produce.

 

In addition he presents a simple but powerful picture of how India was/is based on ~

 

"India had been strafed and divided with the caste system since centuries. The society is divided into 4 sections.

• Brahmins are the teachers and the priests.
• Kshatriyas are the warriors.
• Vaishyas are the merchants.
• And Shudras are the agriculturists and service providers.

The caste system is hereditary. So who you are depends on who your father is. If you are born in a Shudra family, you couldn’t join the army."  To read more..... 

 

It is an unavoidable fact that there are many charities on record to serve the same purpose. If you look at the charities that are in place to ease food shortages you will see that there is an unholy competiton afoot to be the recipients of the greatest level of donations.

 

WHY?

 

Why can't all these charities get together and work as one for the benefit of as many as possible? Why do they have to create offices and collection centres for themselves instead of having one or two central administartion points?

 

The answer is depressingly obvious. Charity is BIG business.

 

As you have said, the boards of these charities are not populated by charitable and concerned human beings, they are stuffed with greedy, arogant, trough raiding self-seekers. Look at any charity organisation and you will see that, at the head, is an office that drains and squanders the valiant efforts of the people 'on the ground' who actually do the work. You will see directors on obscene salaries and expense accounts who contribute nothing but their names to the organisation.

 

Are these people on the boards of the charities because they support or even understand the reason the charity exists? I doubt it very much. The impression I have is that a charitable nomenclature on a personal letter head is seen as great self publicity. Those of us who give to charity might sometimes wear a sticker - those on the boards wear the charity.

 

180,000 charities is probably 179,900 too many - but don't look for any sensible amalgamations - charity is another gravy train.     

 

Can't find many - certainly not lots!

 

What I have discovered is simply confirmation of the snout-down attitude of the upper echelon of most charities and the surprisingly wide spread attitude that to be a paid staffer on a charity somehow makes you better than the person giving up time to really work for the charity.

 

I have not found a single non board member of any charity in Spain (British or Spanish) that even gets his/her expenses paid - let alone a wage! There are hundreds of charities out there that are missmanaged on a gruesome scale by people who see charity work as an easy option for making far more money than they actually earn.

 

As always, there will be a (very) few exceptions but, just as many people seem to think stealing from a charity shop is not a criminal act (after all, the goods were supplied free!) there are far too many nonentities who use the charity gravy train to enhance their own standing - often to the detriment of the charity itself.

 

Far too little over-sight is exercised on charities. If they were audited half as vigorously as poor old Fred, the match seller, who knows how many 'missing' contributions might turn up. I find it so distasteful that the obscene salaries paid to senior officers of charities are actually defended by comparing charities to big business. Charities have no manufacturing expenses. They have few storage expenses and they generally have whole armies of people working for them to provide the cash which they like to think is going to help the poor  . . . . . . . . .  (fill that in for yourself).

 

They are NOT big enough business to justify these salaries.

 

The strange thing is that charities have hundreds of people capable of running all aspects of them at far less cost than the current system of elite skim merchants - but that will never happen because the gravy train is now rolling and the snouts are down.