[catherine]

You know bouncy balls? You bounce them, they cost 20p out of one of those machines where you put the money in and turn the thingy and when they bounce they go bong, bong, bong.

[MK Chris]

Actually they go boing, boing, boing.

[DevilsDuck]

Actually they go boing, boing, boing.

I thought that was Tiggers that went boing, boing, boing

[Yudster]

There's a wonderful thing about Tiggers.

[TIAL]

I lost my bouncy ball yesterday

I was outside trying to see how high I could bounce the ball but the ball bounced awkwardly and went straight into the private woods next door

[DevilsDuck]

There's a wonderful thing about Tiggers.

Is it that Tiggers are wonderful things?

[Ezza]

Their tops are made out of rubber, their bottoms are made out of springs.

[Boboff]

They are bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, fun, fun, fun fun, fun.

[Yudster]

At last!

[Boboff]

I thought it went

" The wonderful thing about Tigers is I am the only one"

"At Last" doesn't scan right.

[Ezza]

Thats nearer the end of the song.

[Zoot]

Haha, I had a very enthusiastic Mrs Zoot bouncing around and singing that in the Kitchen yesterday. Very funny.

[SAV1OUR]

Gooooooooood mornin'!

[MK Chris]

Oh, and sorry to bang this drum again but

http://www.justgiving.com/statements/commissions_popup/default.asp

So a £10 donation sees the charity get nearly £12, just giving get their cash from claiming back from the government (this only happens if you click on the tax thingy when you donate). Yes, justgiving.com get some cash from the Gift Aid part of it but some of it gets passed back to the charity so they actually get more than you donated.

Charities can claim gift aid back on donations if the donator agrees anyway - and nobody takes any commission for that. That was all. Justgiving make money out of charity donations, plain and simple. If you don't mind that, then absolutely fine. For me I'd prefer someone to set up a non-profit or charity to do what justgiving does.

Apologies for draggin up an old thread here. I agree with Mr Harris' sentiments about making money from charity donations, which is why (in light of my decision to start running) I have been looking around for alternatives. I have found that Mr Branson is planning on entering the market in a non-profit way later this year.

I just thought maybe it could be of interest to some.

[Andy B]

And just to wade into the foray. I can see what the fuss is about but not sure I agree with it. Fair enough when things like comic relief say "Every pound goes to help....blah blah blah" but most charities aren't run that way. They have marketing budgets just like other companies. I used to collect money for charity and I damn well made sure I got paid for doing it cos I was great at it.

Example. Those dog adverts on TV £2 a month jobbies. Let's say for every person who donated that it cost 50p from them to put the ad on tele in the first place. So what's the difference between giving it straight to the charity who then give money to ITV (or whoever) or, were it possible, ringing ITV giving them £2 and they pass £1.50 on to the charity. Same end result really. With a website like Justgiving it needs to pay for servers, techy bods to run it etc. And it helps draw in revenue that might not otherwise come in so why should they not be re-warded for the help they are doing same way I was.

I'm gonna get a barrage of abuse for that now aren't I?

[TIAL]

I'm gonna get a barrage of abuse for that now aren't I?

Not from me. I think it's unreasonable to think that charities can maintain themselves completely independently.

[MK Chris]

The main issue for me is that JustGiving appear to be quite bad at letting people know this; in fact, they almost appear to be trying to hide it. Surely if Richard Branson wants to be philanthropic and create a non-profit alternative, that's got to be better?

Also, I can understand what Andy B is saying, but I personally think I could only volunteer for charities, rather than be employed by them. I would find it difficult to take money from them.

[Andy B]

I wasn't employed by the charity. I was employed by a sales company. We just happened to get a contract to do work for charities.

I've no problem with Sir Dick B setting up his own one but he has the funds to do such a thing. Others don't so I don't begrudge them.

[MK Chris]

Yeah - I can understand other people taking a wage from charities - some have to - I personally would just find it very difficult to do such a thing... but then I find it difficult to take money from people in general.

[Andy B]

Well the way it worked with me was that I got £15 for everyone who signed up for £5/month but I didn't get paid until 3 months time so it cost the charity nothing otherwise and the majority of people would stay on longer than that anyway. So the charity was always winning.

[Munki Bhoy]

I must admit, I wasn't aware of the JustGiving issue until a few days ago when our Comic Relief efforts turned up on it and I mentioned we were using it on here! I'll be giving them a wide berth from now on.

I still don't quite understand why we didn't use the Comic Relief pages instead. That's Marketing people for you.

[Yudster]

My dislike of JustGiving is mostly because they appear to attempt to hide the fact that they skim off the top, and present themselves as a purely charitable operation. But the argument that they must need to do that in order to be able to exist must be spurious, because even beyond the official Red Nose Day website there are at least two other sites which host charity giving and manage to do so without taking a chunk for themselves.

[MK Chris]

Oh, and sorry to bang this drum again but

http://www.justgiving.com/statements/commissions_popup/default.asp

So a £10 donation sees the charity get nearly £12, just giving get their cash from claiming back from the government (this only happens if you click on the tax thingy when you donate). Yes, justgiving.com get some cash from the Gift Aid part of it but some of it gets passed back to the charity so they actually get more than you donated.

Charities can claim gift aid back on donations if the donator agrees anyway - and nobody takes any commission for that. That was all. Justgiving make money out of charity donations, plain and simple. If you don't mind that, then absolutely fine. For me I'd prefer someone to set up a non-profit or charity to do what justgiving does.

Apologies for draggin up an old thread here. I agree with Mr Harris' sentiments about making money from charity donations, which is why (in light of my decision to start running) I have been looking around for alternatives. I have found that Mr Branson is planning on entering the market in a non-profit way later this year.

I just thought maybe it could be of interest to some.

This has launched now, I've just been taking a peek - they are very open about the fact that they take some of the money, but only to cover operating costs and they have a neat little comparison table. I think if I needed to use anybody in the future, they would be my choice.