I may have mentioned that, for the last 7 or 8 years, I have been the parish co-ordinator for Christian Aid. In that time, we have gone from 20 volunteers covering about 25 to 30 streets collecting about £1500 to, nowadays, about half of all those amounts. As many of you may know, I ran the Bath Half this March for Great Ormond Street on behalf of my nephew who had to have a major brain operation there last year and raised £1650. The first time I did the half marathon, I did it for Mind as I am a mentalist and raised about £400.
I have been wondering why there is such a disparity in the amounts collected, let alone the reduction in money to Christian Aid over the years*. There are a few reasons that have come to me.
Christian Aid is an annual event whereas my marathon runs were one-offs.
Christian Aid is a massive charity and people have become somewhat suspicious of the increasing professionalisation and corporisation of charities in recent years. However, both MIND and, certainly, Great Ormond Street are also big professionally run charities.
Christian Aid, being a door to door collecting charity suffers from the recent onset of chuggers calling at people's houses. Although, Christian Aid are volunteers who invariably live on the streets where they collect, people tend not to know their neighbours quite so well nowadays so it is just someone else who knocks on your door, asking for money when you are having tea or bathing the kids.
The elephant in the room is, of course, that people don't like the "Christian" in Christian Aid. From experience, apparent non-theists seem just as happy to give money to Christians or other theists if not moreso. However, as people don't tend to give reasons for not giving, I can't say for sure that the religious nature of the charity isn't off-putting.
Another reason is possibly that the donations to GOSH were increased because of the personal nature of the appeal. However, firstly, a lot of the people who gave, probably the greater majority, did not know my nephew. Also, my appeal for MIND was linked to my own mental disorder which included a personal element to the appeal. Indeed, both marathon sponsorships were publicised the same way and collected the same way through Justgiving, Facebook etc. and obviously were raised by me running the same event. As I ran for my nephew after I ran for Mind, the greater amount goes against any novelty of me running the marathon or any giving fatigue.
The one difference in the two marathons is quite simply, to my mind, that the latter time I was raising funds for not only a 5 year old boy but one who, in the picture on my fundraising page, is very cute looking and smiling. The previous one had a picture of a grizzled middle-aged me which is less enticing. However, the Christian Aid literature also shows young children. The stark truth, however, is those are brown babies who live somewhere else in that there foreign. My nephew is white and, as it happens, very blond.
I am sure that Christian Aid, like many charities, have done research into what images to use in their literature. From my limited experience, blond white British boys living in a rich country who have a thankfully treatable and temporary condition trump brown children living in third world countries with long-term and less treatable conditions such as hunger, poverty and malaria. I appreciate that this is a truism that we all know. Indeed, at Christian Aid, they have to make a big deal that a fair whack of the money goes to UK cases. I am not saying that Christian Aid should be putting blond white kids on their literature obviously.
It is interesting, from this, to see how people give money and why. I also find it fascinating the disparity between the four different streets I collect from even when three of them are effectively continuations of the same street.
By the way, one of the things I can pass on is, if you don't want to give money to a collector, just say "No, thank you". There is no need to think up excuses or pretend to look for money that never turns up as they would prefer to told "no" so that they can get onto the next house as quickly as possible. Well, certainly that is the case for volunteer collectors, maybe not commission-driven chuggers.
*The year-on-year reduction to Christian Aid is, of course, down to the ageing demographic of the Anglican church - which provides pretty much all the collectors.
I have been wondering why there is such a disparity in the amounts collected, let alone the reduction in money to Christian Aid over the years*. There are a few reasons that have come to me.
Christian Aid is an annual event whereas my marathon runs were one-offs.
Christian Aid is a massive charity and people have become somewhat suspicious of the increasing professionalisation and corporisation of charities in recent years. However, both MIND and, certainly, Great Ormond Street are also big professionally run charities.
Christian Aid, being a door to door collecting charity suffers from the recent onset of chuggers calling at people's houses. Although, Christian Aid are volunteers who invariably live on the streets where they collect, people tend not to know their neighbours quite so well nowadays so it is just someone else who knocks on your door, asking for money when you are having tea or bathing the kids.
The elephant in the room is, of course, that people don't like the "Christian" in Christian Aid. From experience, apparent non-theists seem just as happy to give money to Christians or other theists if not moreso. However, as people don't tend to give reasons for not giving, I can't say for sure that the religious nature of the charity isn't off-putting.
Another reason is possibly that the donations to GOSH were increased because of the personal nature of the appeal. However, firstly, a lot of the people who gave, probably the greater majority, did not know my nephew. Also, my appeal for MIND was linked to my own mental disorder which included a personal element to the appeal. Indeed, both marathon sponsorships were publicised the same way and collected the same way through Justgiving, Facebook etc. and obviously were raised by me running the same event. As I ran for my nephew after I ran for Mind, the greater amount goes against any novelty of me running the marathon or any giving fatigue.
The one difference in the two marathons is quite simply, to my mind, that the latter time I was raising funds for not only a 5 year old boy but one who, in the picture on my fundraising page, is very cute looking and smiling. The previous one had a picture of a grizzled middle-aged me which is less enticing. However, the Christian Aid literature also shows young children. The stark truth, however, is those are brown babies who live somewhere else in that there foreign. My nephew is white and, as it happens, very blond.
I am sure that Christian Aid, like many charities, have done research into what images to use in their literature. From my limited experience, blond white British boys living in a rich country who have a thankfully treatable and temporary condition trump brown children living in third world countries with long-term and less treatable conditions such as hunger, poverty and malaria. I appreciate that this is a truism that we all know. Indeed, at Christian Aid, they have to make a big deal that a fair whack of the money goes to UK cases. I am not saying that Christian Aid should be putting blond white kids on their literature obviously.
It is interesting, from this, to see how people give money and why. I also find it fascinating the disparity between the four different streets I collect from even when three of them are effectively continuations of the same street.
By the way, one of the things I can pass on is, if you don't want to give money to a collector, just say "No, thank you". There is no need to think up excuses or pretend to look for money that never turns up as they would prefer to told "no" so that they can get onto the next house as quickly as possible. Well, certainly that is the case for volunteer collectors, maybe not commission-driven chuggers.
*The year-on-year reduction to Christian Aid is, of course, down to the ageing demographic of the Anglican church - which provides pretty much all the collectors.
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