Friday Monday rant
An email I just received from Monday says, again: "And five times more out of every pound goes to charity than the National Lottery."That's as good as a lie. And I think any jury would agree. Hope so.
The fact is that 28.5p per pound goes to 70 large charities in the first year (Monday's stated 30p really is a lie - how fun) rather than the National Lottery's 28p per pound going to thousands of mostly small non-profits.
And can people stop plumping up the feathers of Monday's MD Craig Freeman by calling him a social entrepreneur? Anyone who says, "There was no lottery here until 1994 so there was all this pent-up demand" is not a social entrepreneur. Social entrepreneurs work to help society, not to secure shares for the board worth £3.4m, share options worth a further £5.2m, or a £1m company bonus scheme and employee incentive plan.
Best overview is in The Guardian. More in the Indy. Even more at the Fundraising Technology blog.
posted by David Pitchford @ 4:16 pm
11 Comments:
No but do tell us what you really think Mr Mysterious Charity Blogger. Interestingly enough at least two of the participating charitioes (Care International and Shelter) have repeated the words that upset you so much. I wonder if they read them.
You seem to have a point of view and you are determined to make it work.
30p goes to charities and we then pay a 5% fee of the funds paid to us.
So not a lie just a different way of saying things.
5.4p of every pound of NL money goes to charities with the rest paid to good causes - ranging from the olympics to heritage and so on .... but that is not charity.
As for the board of monday I hope they end up being very successful and making loads of money - which none of us then know how they might spend it (they might give it all to charity but that would spoil your point wouldn't it).
Fact is the city would not have put up the funds unless the directors had an incentive and they can't profit from any of this till 75% take up and at least till next year for some options.
If they get rich it will be because we as a charity have received a huge input of funds and that - in my eyes - is a good thing.
MSRC could never afford the kind of publicity that monday have provided and we are proud to be in at the beginning of this venture.
I would far rather question the salaries of some people in charities than pick holes in commercial people making a fortune.
Once monday is up and running it may include more charities but so what if it does not.
When Beckham holds a do for NSPCC should we all complain because smaller charities are not getting the money or should we just applaud his efforts and get on with life.
monday is worth not attacking - even if you do not think it is worth backing!
So in summary I disagree with your line on monday but in true MSRC fashion I totally support your right to have that view.
Yours
Lawrence
Chief Executive
The Multiple Sclerosis Resource Centre
www.msrc.co.uk
I think Monday is worth attacking if it threatens to reduce the diversity of the voluntary sector by consolidating the larger charities and more popular causes, to the detriment of the smaller, often less popular (and locally-oriented) causes. Bear in mind I have an impartial opinion here; I personally have nothing to gain or lose either way. Either way, thanks for your comment.
I cannot see how you can claim to be impartial when you are so against 'the big boys' - of which we are not one.
We won't be one of them either no matter how big we become.
One of our mottos - stolen from Walt Disney - is never forget this whole thing started with a mouse.
I do feel that some of the big charities have a lot to answer for because they have put running the big business they have become ahead of what they first started out to do.
I believe that the smaller groups, and the grassroots level of some of the big charities, still operate from passion and committment but this is not true of all.
Some of the smaller charities are pretty much ego trips for those who run them and some of the bigger charities have passion all the way through.
So if one cannot generalise you should think hard about knocking something that could transform the income of MSRC because we might actually be worth the money!
At least here we have managed to get a debate going and that has to be a good thing.
Yours
Lawrence
Thank you Lawrence. You have almost won me over simply by choosing to quote Walt Disney! MSRC looks interesting, and I'm intrigued to see your site offering a bulletin board, chat room and even a link to the Tescopoly of your sector. All these things are rare on charity websites. More power to your elbow!
Thank you - we need all the power we can get just to keep going.
Another Disney quote we live by is If we can dream it we CAN do it.
This sad man also always wears a Mickey Mouse watch just to remind me.
Yours
Lawrence
Larence, monday cannot and should not have it both ways.
On the one hand they want to play what they may consider clever word games by splitting hairs about the Good Causes, claiming that only 5.6p for the National Lottery Good Causes cut of 28p goes to charity when they know lots of other equally deserving awards are made to equally deserving groups that are not charities.
But then they want to claim that 30p from each £ goes to charity and charities will recieve up to 600,000 per draw and 3,000,000 a year. While conveniently their word games omit all issues of costs, recharges and fees.
Playmonday cannot have it both ways with their deceptive word games.
As well the fee of 5% of your monies from playmonday, what other expenses are there ?
The Gambling Commission charge various fees for registering each lottery.
Also this company SMI who operate the draws on behalf of the charity are on a percentage of the charities takings, as well as playmonday.
They claim to have generated £150,000 for charity last week, split between 5 charities.
That's net.
Let's have a gross figure.
What are all the deductions and expenses. Lets find out how much did each charity actually profit ?
If they wish to base their marketing campaign on splitting hairs about National Lottery fund allocation, then they can have no complaints and are fair game for the same examination.
Total raised for charity = £150,000 (Gross)
Each of 5 charities = £30,000 (Gross)
(Therefore total sales of each of 5 lotterys = £100,000)
Deductions
Gambling Commission Registration = £5,152.00
GC fee for gross tickets sales of between £50,000 - £199,999 = £324.00
GC inspection of lottery returns = £10.00
Chariot marketing fee of 5% = £1,500
SMI lottery management fee of 1% = £300
Total deductions = £7,286.
Total ach charity recieved £22,714 Net.
From total sales of £100,000 this is equal to the charities who have participated so far profiting by 22p in each £1.
Glad to have been of service.
There's one lottery that's been eclipsed by all this excitement: the Postcode Lottery. the quirk of this one is that the more people who play in one postal district the *more* likely is that that district will win, allegedly. Oh and 20% or so goes to local charities. http://www.postcodelottery.co.uk/
According to Third Sector today (14 June) Chariot "is trying to persuade its 70 charity partners to give additional financial support to pay for marketing".
How patronising of Lawrence to say that “some of the smaller charities are pretty much ego trips for those who run them”.
Really? I must work out what I get out of Bullying Online (www.bullying.co.uk).
Is it money? No, I work in excess of 45 hours a week for the charity – for nothing.
It must be for the kudos then? Not really, we have pretty unpopular views on some aspects of school bullying and we’re something of a black sheep when it comes to toeing the official (government) line.
So is it the warm fuzzy feeling I get from helping people? Hmm, yes, it’s nice when they say thanks but there’s also a lot of worry involved when we’re emailed by up to four suicidal children a day.
So what do I get out of it? Well, how long have you got Lawrence? There’s the worry over fundraising, paying the bills, filling in the endless forms that go with the first staff we’ve been able to afford to employ, doing the accounts, writing contracts, arranging insurance, sorting out tax, renting an office, pursuing (successfully) an endless stream of well funded organisations which breach our copyright, writing new content for our website, running The National Bullying Survey 2006, doing three or four media interviews a day, nipping to the bank, sending out leaflets, writing letters, speaking at conferences, visiting schools, running workshops….. and replying to 8,400+ emails last year.
Of course, I’m probably not doing enough. But then I do have a full time job too which slows me down a bit.
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