What do people think the most effective charities are in the UK? I give money to the Trussell Trust every month, but want to add another one for monthly donations...
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Can’t look much further than the RNLI, who combine such bravery and selflessness witbier effectiveness. Too many other fine charities to mention, but your local hospice is also always a great institution to support (for me, that’s the Arthur Rank Hospice).
The Science Media Centre does fantastic work reducing misinformation/improving science coverage in the UK. Small but really targeted at its niche and hence highly effective.
Citizens advice or similar. State has been gutted and so many people rely on advice to navigate system. They have lots of partners they work with to deliver projects
What do you mean by effective? Cancer Research UK hoover up the money, not that that's a bad thing, but can make things difficult for other charities in the same area. If you mean does good work then GOSH or the Alder Hey charity do amazing things.
As a "when you're dead you're dead" Quaker of the Unitarian tendency, I give monthly to the Sally Army. Theologically we're polls apart, but they reach parts of society that no-one else reaches.
So, I support a couple of bigger charities; Shelter, Mind and Crisis. If you’re looking for a smaller, but very effective and inspiring charity, can I recommend these guys?
I give each month to Make A Wish foundation on the basis there’s zero ROI on sending sick kids to theme parks or football games, which is exactly why it’s a charity and why it needs donations.
I'm going to plug Acts 435, where you can see precisely the difference you're making for individual people on the knife edge of poverty. https://www.acts435.org.uk/
Trussell Trust is one side of the coin: independent food aid is the other. There's a huge no. of local charities & community groups supported by the charity FareShare, which redistributes surplus food on a massive scale, so local groups provide food choice + dignity https://fareshare.org.uk/what-we-do/
And I was astonished (in a good way) to see the data on how they supported young people’s resilience. Still love it when the things pop out the data like this.
I guess it depends what your priorities are. I give to crisis and local children’s charities- local respite etc. I know people who give to animal charities. I figure if we all pick what we feel drawn to, they all get donations? Poss naive but 🤷♀️
Mountain rescue teams.
Volunteers who drop everything to rescue injured hikers, fell runners, wild campers...
They spend weekends training - unless rescuing.
Here's an example of a rescue from Buxton Mountain Rescue Team.
Like RNLI, absolutely heroes.
I guess not fitting your bill, but lets me slip in a plug for Mines Advisory Group (MAG) International, 🇬🇧 based, doing amazing work around the 🌍 to clear landmines & promote armed violence reduction. Lots of other brilliant charities out there too. https://www.maginternational.org/
I donate and have volunteered for BEAT the eating disorders charity. It’s a wonderful service and much needed as provision via the nhs is limited and waiting lists are long.
Go for something small and local to you, or for which you have a special interest. It’s always far more difficult for the minnows to be heard, but they largely do brilliant work.
Jumping in here to say I set up a regular donation to the RNLI because the gammons were upset they were teaching foreign and especially non-white kids to swim.
I also support RNLI after the volunteers went out, without hesitation, and on Xmas day, to find my cousin. Hideous weather and yet they stayed out until it was pitch black to keep searching. Superheroes.
I am a big fan of IPSEA who give free and very high quality information about rights for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
Midland Langar service provides hot meals to homeless members of the community and those living on the poverty line as well as children in deprived households…
I like hyper-local charities, as I get the sense (rightly or wrongly) that there is less of the inefficiency that is inevitable in a larger organisation, maximising my donation’s value.
Also a massive fan of Football Beyond Borders - an education & social exclusion charity supporting young people through football (https://www.footballbeyondborders.org/)
As a one off I always give to the Crisis at Christmas Appeal, I pay for Christmas dinner for a table of 10 people, you can do other amounts. Also sponsor a child through a monthly donation https://www.worldvision.org.uk/sponsor-a-child/chosen/
In that case Parkinson's UK, doing really interesting things leveraging funding into research.
Or Mind, amazing at how they have helped change the debate around mental health
I think it depends
A) what you care to make help make a difference about and then see if they are effective at doing that.
B) And how much of a difference the amount of money you plan to give will help them. For a long time I gave the cost of two coffees a week to a community venue in my home town
As a volunteer at one I would suggest your local animal shelter. Not one of the big brand known ones but a front line. They are overwhelmed, have massively increased costs and fewer donations. Plus more strays than ever post covid / cost of living.
Shelter do great work and so do the YMCA. I am not Christian but when I was made homeless at 17, they found me lodgings and supported me in all sorts of ways to get me back on my feet. Without them I would be the successful human I am today with a great career and a house
Most young people they help are good kids who just don't get on with step parents (which was my situation) I was a straight A student and their non-judgemental and incredible support cannot be understated
Law Centres. Access to justice has been stripped away for so many. Helping people understand and enforce their rights can ease the pressure on so many other front line organisations and support services.
The Trussell Trust have to be the most ineffective charity ever because one of their stated aims, apparently, is advocating for government to end the need for food banks, yet they simultaneously boast about the huge growth in branches they run.
When I see (as I often do) photographs of smiling Conservative M.Ps opening their local Food Bank, and hear Jacob Rees Mogg opining that they show something ‘rather lovely’ about the UK it shows they feel anything but shame. Food banks represent their ideal vision of philanthropy replacing welfare:
Not relevant to your discussion (not UK) but Action Aid has a campaign using posters behind loo doors in motorway services, inviting a phone donation for period products. You might track my travels by those donations.
Yes, absolutely true; charity does do that. It alleviates immediate suffering but in a bigger sense all it achieves is facilitating austerity. Why do you think Thatcher harked back to Victorian values (the zenith of public philanthropy in a pre welfare state era). Think also Cameron’s big society.
Smaller local charities struggle to get funding. Community hubs really struggle because they have more than one purpose and have to be a lot of things to a wide variety of people. Find your local community hub, see what it does and offer them some support. It doesn’t always have to be financial
The most effective charities are often small local ones. Eg where i live in Newham, The Magpie Project, or Newham Solidarity Fund. But to really decide, you need to have some idea of what area or type of work you want to support. There are so many good organisations which deserve support.
If you are interested in food poverty look at the Felix Project. Homelessness - look at New Horizons Youth Centre. It is a big question - helps to know what areas you want to look at.
I always thought that they were a quango. As they are providing a social service, helping citizens claiming their govt entitlements I'm actually shocked that they're a charity. That seems almost a failure state to me.
Not all, many. Certainly ones like the Trussell Trust are, but some such as preservation societies for buildings or steam locos aren't. Nor are local conservation groups (my local wild bee one as an example).
I understand that point. The independence is important for building up trust. It does seem to set up the relationship between the state and the citizen as the former having power over the latter rather than the citizens giving power to the state as an expression of their will.
The @freerepunit.bsky.social does a great deal with very little. It provides volunteer advocates in employment and social security tribunals and consistently achieves life-improving outcomes for vulnerable people.
Any charity with a very strong campaigning arm. Your pound can only go so far on its own, but if it changes legislation then it'll carry on changing lives forever.
Trickle down tactics imo. I volunteer for a small charity. The big ones have the brand, the lobbying power, the funds. Their influence hasn’t stopped or sutured overwhelming front line demand. If we weren’t there then they’d have neither time or funds to lobby.
I agree in that lobbying is risky. I'm thinking about Rashford and free school meals though. Other examples of successful campaigns are available. I wonder how much worse things would have been without those organisations lobbying.
One of my favourites is https://www.thebrooke.org as they help animals and people. They train people how to look after their working animals where there is little access to vets and they need to work their animals to live.
In the education I’m a fan of AllChild, Right to Succeed, The Reach Foundation, Sistema Scotland, Jamie’s Farm, IntoUniversity. I love the domestic abuse charity ‘Safelives’ too. ‘Lighthouse’ also worth a look. In London, it’s worth looking through the tiny charity’s supported by Childhood Trust.
All of these score well on our ‘balanced score card’ which covers strategy, leadership, proof of impact, impact per £, niche, financial management, governance.
Comments
https://freetobekids.org.uk/
Dogs On The Streets
https://www.choirwithnoname.org/
Crisis.
Shelter.
Volunteers who drop everything to rescue injured hikers, fell runners, wild campers...
They spend weekends training - unless rescuing.
Here's an example of a rescue from Buxton Mountain Rescue Team.
Like RNLI, absolutely heroes.
I’m a trustee I declare an interest
Dogs on the Streets
Streetvet
Cats Protection
Fareshare
Crisis
Shelter
Local help centres, kids support etc
https://helpbristolshomeless.org/about-us/
The guy who runs it is an absolute hero
https://www.caverescue.org.uk/rescue-teams/
https://www.mountain.rescue.org.uk/
https://rnli.org/
Also a massive fan of Football Beyond Borders - an education & social exclusion charity supporting young people through football (https://www.footballbeyondborders.org/)
https://www.justgiving.com/page/emma-barham-1720116693986?utm_campaign=lc_frp_share_transaction_fundraiser_page_donation_received_-_nth_donation&utm_content=691fe207-b8e4-400a-89b9-b287f41022ae&utm_medium=email&utm_source=postoffice&utm_term=1723364566093
https://passage.org.uk/
https://www.pause.org.uk/
And Shelter at every Christmas.
https://www.justgiving.com/page/emma-barham-1720116693986?utm_campaign=lc_frp_share_transaction_fundraiser_page_donation_received_-_nth_donation&utm_content=691fe207-b8e4-400a-89b9-b287f41022ae&utm_medium=email&utm_source=postoffice&utm_term=1723364566093
Saves the lives of many people around the UK's coast.
Lifeboats manned by volunteers, people from all walks of life.
Pisses Farage off by its very existence.
Or Mind, amazing at how they have helped change the debate around mental health
A) what you care to make help make a difference about and then see if they are effective at doing that.
B) And how much of a difference the amount of money you plan to give will help them. For a long time I gave the cost of two coffees a week to a community venue in my home town
He’s on Substack if you care to have a look.
Or Woodland Trust. The UK needs trees.
(Also give tp Womens Aid)
https://www.freedomfromtorture.org/
But it may be that charity is no longer the appropriate status.
Originally they were a wartime service and during the war there was state funding, which ended after
https://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities
Infectious disease prevention in the developing world, unsurprisingly comes out top usually.
In my area, Herts Young Homeless is one of my preferred ones.