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An honest question deserves a honest answer.

We have to stick to the charity commission rules and regulations on paying professional collectors. The Charity recieves 25 percent of what is raised by each collector. The collector recieves 40/45% and I recieve the remainder as my commission. It might sound alot but it works out to be the most cost effective way for the charity to fundraise over all. Its better for the charity to recieve say £500 a week by using professionals than by having dear mrs Smith raising £40 per year by doing a cake stall at the WI. Please dont think that Im knocking the Mrs Smiths of this world as all money recieved by the charity is very gratefully recieved. This way the charity though can budget knowing roughly what sort of money they will recieve each week.

My commission may sound alot BUT I have to pay for all the stock we sell, all the pots, seals, display boards, tabards etc... as well as running the office and the costs on that side can be quite high. It costs on average £25 to get a booking to go to a store, post, phone calls, etc.

My O.T.E gross figure is aprox £45-50k per year

Thanks for the honest answer.

So how do I become one of these people then if the salaries are like that? ;)

Seriously though, I still cannot get my head around the rules and regs set out by the charity commission. Surely the charity should receive 40/45% of the money, the collector receives 25% or smaller and so on......?

TBH, that kind of "profit" for the "collector" kind of puts me off donating to charity, as really you are donating to the "collector" more than you are the "charity". We all know that there are lots of charities out there doing lots of good things for cancer, cerebral palsy, etc.... but surely if they have "professional collectors" creaming a lot of the money off the top then this doesn't help towards their causes? If I were to donate £100 now to say, Cancer Research via a professional collector, the charity would only see £25 whilst the rest is creamed off for profit/expenses of the collector. Hmm........ makes you think!

BTW, these are just my personal views and not those of the forum!

Edited for a spelling typo....

Exactly the reason why all the charities I want to support get paid directly by me, tax free, by DD - and so they get the lot.

Anybody in the street, or that comes hassling me in a pub can feck right off >:(

Almante...........appreciate the job offer but i won't be out of the green stuff until a years time at the earliest.

But an interesting post nonetheless. I never realised that there are professional collectors out there. I, and I imagine the majority of people, would have thought that any money that is donated goes wholely to that charity.

I'm sure the charities have weighed things up and decided this is the best way to go in order to get the most money donated as possible. But I have to agree with Scott on the point of the large percentage taken by the collectors, which certainly shocked me

I understand why it puts alot of peoples backs up with the work that I do BUT some of the smaller charities cant afford the man power or time to raise funds sufficient to cover their over heads let alone anything else so thats where I can help! If it wasnt for professional fundraisers like myself and my team alot of charities would fold & then nobody would "profit".

At the end of the day I can only talk from my own experience and I know there is alot of good work done by the fact that I have been able to commit my time and best efforts - upto 7 days a week - to make the charity a success! How many of you would be prepared to stand outside a supermarket for 8-9hours a day when its freezing cold 4/5 days a week and on the other 2/3 organise and run a busy office? The charity recieves no money from the goverment or the lottery and manages to be totally self funding!

No offence mate but lol. I still stand by my post.

I come from working in catering where anything from a 12 to 22 hour day wasn't strange. We're talking come to work sat 6:30am go home 4:30am sun morning and be back at work for 7am. You're talking 70 hours a week min, so no, not really impressed by your hours against pay...........

But thanks for explaining, you've made me even more determined to never pay people in the pub or street and pay direct :)

I still do have to wonder why the Charities Commission think that those kind of percentages are correct. To me, standing in a supermarket, or a petrol station, etc... for the 8 or 9 hours a day to earn 40-50k a year is a lot easier than say somebody like Richie who would be risking their life for their job and they will earn significantly less than that.

Again, nothing personal, but I just think the pay really doesn't justify the job.

It's good that you are honest about it though.....

I do agree with amante though - not many people would stand outside a supermarket for 8-9 hrs a day in the cold...especially when the majority of people will walk straight past to avoid donating

Neil my back ground is cattering so I know what the hours are like. I used to be head barman at a 4/5* hotel & had clients in the bar till 4.30 - 5 and had to be back on duty at 6.30 for a dray delivery (bearing in mind I lived 20mins away & I needed to have a sh*t, shower, shave & food before the "next day" at work. Ive also been manager at a city center pub in Oxford and had to do 12+ hour straight shifts AND the bottleing up, paper work in the office etc, etc. So I know where you are coming from mate.

I used to do "sign ups" for some major local charities (direct debit payments) and it used to work out that the commission rates and bonuses were higher than for general collecting so dont believe that way doesnt pay for the collectors wages!

Like I said before I admit to earning a decent GROSS wage BUT I have alot of out goings as a manager that I dont get back from the charity. For example I paid out £300+ for pots and seals (which all pots MUST have as a legal requirement - not all do!!!) The average post bill is £100-150 a month! Dont even ask about the phone bill - take your domestic bill, put an extra 0 on the end at thats getting near the MONTHLY mark! The costs in charity work are bloody high! thats why it HAS to be run as a business and not as a "Aaw Bless! Lets help the little Kiddy winks!"

Ive had to become very tough about it all over the years and I must admit more than a little cynical as well. If the F*CKING goverment and the Lottery pulled their fingers out of their ar*es ALOT more could be done to help. So much money gets wasted on non essential things and not given to helping people.

To over stress a point, and meant to be said tongue in cheek, so no offence meant to anyone.... Im quite sure if we were a gay, black, lesbian,glove puppet theatre group, who wanted to put on a Russian play in Manderin Chinesse we would probably get full funding! But untill that happens I take pride in the fact that although I get paid a decent wage to do my job, I know that what I do makes a HUGE difference to the lives of many local disabled children. They cant be cured BUT with what I do they get the chance to have the best quality of life that they can have.

Who of you out there can say that??????

I work in IT :D but thankfully I know nothing technical

My job title is: Global Applications Service Delivery Manager :D