Stopping Concern Direct Debit

Rothko

Deleted User wrote: »

If I'm correct, what you have is a standing order as opposed to a direct debit. Standing orders always take out the same amount of money constantly, with no chance whatsoever. Direct debits are for varying amounts, like with bills. Of course, that could be completely wrong.

You can go in and cancel it in the bank. They will ask you to ring them as a courtesy, but that's entirely your own decision.

Ah, ok. I could be wrong about it being a direct debit.

Feathers

paddy147 wrote: »

I had both them and also dogstrust on my doorstep the other day...both trying to get me to sign up to a DD scheme.

Told them both that...."charity begins at home"

But they called to your home? :pac:

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

I feel €50k is more than enough, if it's a career you are after for pure financial gain seek employement somewhere else.

Let's say the person who was going to get £100k could've gotten £200k in the private sector? I can see the emotional argument against high wages, but in private enterprise, you often see boards of directors (whose sole job is to make money for shareholders) appointing people on really high salaries. If you replace shareholders with 'money to charity' in the above equation, why wouldn't it still hold true? If the purpose of a charity is to get money to needy causes, and the board of trustees realises that with a higher CEO salary costs, they're percentage costs go down overall, why shouldn't they back this?


For example, if you said charity A pays a CEO £50k and charity B pays a CEO £200k — which would you prefer to give money to? It's easy to say A. But what happens if A takes in in donations of £1M a year & all other overheads come to £50k (i.e. overall costs of 10%) but B takes in donations of £10M with other overheads of £100k (i.e. overall costs of 3%)?

Adyx

Concern use Direct Debits as much as possible. I can't speak for other banks but with AIB you can't cancel or change direct debits using online banking.

mathepac

admiralofthefleet wrote: »

no regulation on charities here...

Any info to back up this assertion?

Adyx wrote: »

... I can't speak for other banks but with AIB you can't cancel or change direct debits using online banking.

Me too. You must inform the originator and the bank in writing.

Adyx

Adyx wrote: »

Concern use Direct Debits as much as possible. I can't speak for other banks but with AIB you can't cancel or change direct debits using online banking.

Really? That seems pretty underhanded to me!

mathepac

Deleted User wrote: »

Really? That seems pretty underhanded to me!

I can't speak for Concern but other originators issue letters in advance of taking any money laying out the rules for all three parties associated with the arrangement. Typically insurance brokers and insurance companies do this and it's all above board and transparent.

ofcork

I cancelled a concern dd via boi online a few years ago and never heard anymore.

franktheplank

mathepac wrote: »

Any info to back up this assertion?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0522/1224316503985.html

basically the legislation was brought in for charity regulation but the funding has not been put in place so that the actual inspection and regulation can take place. so essentially they are unregulated.

franktheplank

Feathers wrote: »

But they called to your home? :pac:



Let's say the person who was going to get £100k could've gotten £200k in the private sector? I can see the emotional argument against high wages, but in private enterprise, you often see boards of directors (whose sole job is to make money for shareholders) appointing people on really high salaries. If you replace shareholders with 'money to charity' in the above equation, why wouldn't it still hold true? If the purpose of a charity is to get money to needy causes, and the board of trustees realises that with a higher CEO salary costs, they're percentage costs go down overall, why shouldn't they back this?


For example, if you said charity A pays a CEO £50k and charity B pays a CEO £200k — which would you prefer to give money to? It's easy to say A. But what happens if A takes in in donations of £1M a year & all other overheads come to £50k (i.e. overall costs of 10%) but B takes in donations of £10M with other overheads of £100k (i.e. overall costs of 3%)?

There's a number of flaws in this. Firstly, we have no measure to say one charity is performing better than another. There is no accountability so we can't say that one charity is doing more good work with 100m, than another with 1m. (you might assume so, but having worked for a very large charity I can assure you in some notable cases the size of the charity means nothing!)

Secondly, because of the lack of accountability we don't know that both of these charities aren't actually paying their CEO's 500k a year through bonuses, scams, pensions, expenses etc.

Thirdly, some people might believe that the CEO willing to work for 50k is actually more dedicated to the particular cause than the one working for 200k and thus their charity will perform better.

dorkacle

I am actually shocked at the level of income some of these people are getting, this is supposed to be a 'charity'.

I was considering taking up placement in one of these organisations (linked in an earlier post) as part of an intern ship for college, now I'm thinking I may as well get experience and a reference from a for profit organisation, paid or unpaid, that is a joke the money they make!

franktheplank

dorkacle wrote: »

I am actually shocked at the level of income some of these people are getting, this is supposed to be a 'charity'.

I was considering taking up placement in one of these organisations (linked in an earlier post) as part of an intern ship for college, now I'm thinking I may as well get experience and a reference from a for profit organisation, paid or unpaid, that is a joke the money they make!

Yup it's disgusting and remember that's only whats declared nobody knows but themselves what these charity executives are pulling in.

Nd it's not just the CEO's either some of these big charity's are very heavy on high level mgmt, all i'm sure on big wages.

That said maybe you'll go and work for one of the good uns (if they exist) my experience was pretty awful. Met some lovely people working there day to day but in terms of mgmt some of the absolute nastiest pieces of work imaginable, completely cut-throat and not the slightest care for the people the charity was supposed to be helping.

Feathers

franktheplank wrote: »

There's a number of flaws in this. Firstly, we have no measure to say one charity is performing better than another. There is no accountability so we can't say that one charity is doing more good work with 100m, than another with 1m. (you might assume so, but having worked for a very large charity I can assure you in some notable cases the size of the charity means nothing!)

Secondly, because of the lack of accountability we don't know that both of these charities aren't actually paying their CEO's 500k a year through bonuses, scams, pensions, expenses etc.

Thirdly, some people might believe that the CEO willing to work for 50k is actually more dedicated to the particular cause than the one working for 200k and thus their charity will perform better.

We don't have a measure of how well they perform, but generally I'd donate much more readily to a charity with lower percentage costs that take in everything, rather than just looking at a CEO's wage, because as you said, we don't have an objective measure — I don't know the ins and outs, so I don't know if paying high salaries or advertising is a better spend of money to increase donations.

Regarding the dedication of the employees — again, it comes down to who is doing a better job IMO. I suppose something akin to working hard or working smart. You could have a guy who gives his whole life to the charity, but if he's not good at running the place, I think I'd prefer upping the wages & getting someone who can do the job properly.

franktheplank

Feathers wrote: »

We don't have a measure of how well they perform, but generally I'd donate much more readily to a charity with lower percentage costs that take in everything, rather than just looking at a CEO's wage, because as you said, we don't have an objective measure — I don't know the ins and outs, so I don't know if paying high salaries or advertising is a better spend of money to increase donations.

Regarding the dedication of the employees — again, it comes down to who is doing a better job IMO. I suppose something akin to working hard or working smart. You could have a guy who gives his whole life to the charity, but if he's not good at running the place, I think I'd prefer upping the wages & getting someone who can do the job properly.

Hey it's your money, if you wanna give it to a charity because you think they might be doing a good job then so be it!

And if you think giving 200k + to a professional, closing your eyes and hoping, is a good business model, so be it too:D

Geri Male

franktheplank wrote: »

Yup it's disgusting and remember that's only whats declared nobody knows but themselves what these charity executives are pulling in.

Disgusting is too strong a phrase.

Disgusting = going for a sh*t, getting some on your hands and eating food afterwards without washing your hands.

Feathers

franktheplank wrote: »

And if you think giving 200k + to a professional, closing your eyes and hoping, is a good business model, so be it too:D

My argument is quite simple. If it was a cause that I cared about & I was put in charge of hiring a CEO & I've two guys to pick from:

• one guy wants a wage of £200k but will guarantee £1m goes to the front-line after all overheads;
• the other guy wants £50k but will guarantee £300k goes to the front-line cause after all overheads

I'm not going to pick the second guy, purely from a point of principle that 'no-one should earn over X amount from charity work'.

But if you want to close your eyes to the overall overheads & want to fixate on wages of one man in the organisation, so be it too

franktheplank

Feathers wrote: »

My argument is quite simple. If it was a cause that I cared about & I was put in charge of hiring a CEO & I've two guys to pick from:

• one guy wants a wage of £200k but will guarantee £1m goes to the front-line after all overheads;
• the other guy wants £50k but will guarantee £300k goes to the front-line cause after all overheads

I'm not going to pick the second guy, purely from a point of principle that 'no-one should earn over X amount from charity work'.

But if you want to close your eyes to the overall overheads & want to fixate on wages of one man in the organisation, so be it too

Ya coz I'm the one trying to simplify the argument?

I've no problem with somebody being well paid to work for a charity in itself, where did i say that?

What i have a problem with is the lack of accountability, without which it is meaningless to start saying one method is more efficient than the other.

General Relativity

Feathers wrote: »

• one guy wants a wage of £200k but will guarantee £1m goes to the front-line after all overheads;
• the other guy wants £50k but will guarantee £300k goes to the front-line cause after all overheads

??

The first guy pulls in 5 times their wage, the second person pulls in 6 times their wage.

Feathers

franktheplank wrote: »

Ya coz I'm the one trying to simplify the argument?

I've no problem with somebody being well paid to work for a charity in itself, where did i say that?

What i have a problem with is the lack of accountability, without which it is meaningless to start saying one method is more efficient than the other.

I was saying I'm the one trying to simplify the argument I don't know if it's meaningless — not as good as we'd like. But I think most people would like to see as much money going to the needy cause as possible.

General Relativity wrote: »

??

The first guy pulls in 5 times their wage, the second person pulls in 6 times their wage.

Yeah, it's a bit of a contrived (useless) example, because it's missing a figure for overheads :pac:

My main point was that even if the first guy demands higher wages, if he can manage expenses and/or generate income better than the second, does that not make him worth the higher price?

At the end of the day, most charities are looking to provide as much of a quality service in their field (counselling, support groups, facilities, third-world aid) as possible, so the less amount that you can spend on administration costs the better.

murpho999

Makes me laugh all this outrage at people being well paid working for a charity.

All indignant bar stool talk.

Do people not realise that charities are like businesses which have costs, including salaries and their staff generate programs etc to be more efficient and generate profits that then fund their work in the field.

Charities like Concern do more than just hand out food bags to the hungry in Africa.
They run education programs for children and also women in Afghanistan.
These programmes employ international staff as well as local staff to run them and everyone is paid.
Infrastructure projects like irrigation for farming, bridges and vaccination programs.

All run by professional people that could not be done effectively by low paid or voluntary staff.
Professional people bring professional ethics to make it run better and have better marketing programmes to raise funds to run more projects.

Professional people make organisations more appealing for donations llke the Gates Foundation, which would not just give to anyone.

It really is a simple concept and people should stop expecting international organisations , which the likes of Concern & Goal are, to be run like your local under 11 football team.

Also, if people actually looked at how many Irish people are actually employed in the 'charity' sector, you'd realise what an important contributer it is to jobs and economy in Ireland.

Frank Black

'People try to justify not contributing to charity by googling CEO's salary shocker'

Paddy Cow

General Relativity wrote: »

??

The first guy pulls in 5 times their wage, the second person pulls in 6 times their wage.

The first guy pulls in €1 million for the charity. The second guy pulls in €300k. That's a huge difference in revenue for the charity. First guy is definitely worth the higher salary.

Deskjockey

murpho999 wrote: »

.

All run by professional people that could not be done effectively by low paid or voluntary staff.
.

There's a big difference between things run by handsomely competent and professional staff on 85k a year and being run by staff on nearly twice that 145k a year. It's a bit distasteful IMHO especially when there's people out shaking buckets for nothing like for the cancer society.

murpho999

Deskjockey wrote: »

There's a big difference between things run by handsomely competent and professional staff on 85k a year and being run by staff on nearly twice that 145k a year. It's a bit distasteful IMHO especially when there's people out shaking buckets for nothing like for the cancer society.

If a person is worth €145k a year in one organisation then they won't work for another for €85k

If a CEO on €145k can achieve revenue growth or cost savings of 10% then they are worth the extra money.

I don't understand why people don't get this!

So an interview you expect this.

A) What's Your Current salary?

€145k

A) We can only pay you €85k and we're a charity.

Ok that's fine I'll take the pay cut.

murpho999

Deskjockey wrote: »

There's a big difference between things run by handsomely competent and professional staff on 85k a year and being run by staff on nearly twice that 145k a year. It's a bit distasteful IMHO especially when there's people out shaking buckets for nothing like for the cancer society.

Those bucket shakers are probably not doing it for nothing.

Also, most respectable charities would not be out on the street shaking buckets.

Feathers

Deskjockey wrote: »

There's a big difference between things run by handsomely competent and professional staff on 85k a year and being run by staff on nearly twice that 145k a year. It's a bit distasteful IMHO especially when there's people out shaking buckets for nothing like for the cancer society.

There's a big difference between organising a bag pack or a bucket collection & running an organisation with a staff of hundreds, coordinating media slots to get coverage, putting together detailed research proposals / presentations to get grants, creating attractive but competitive sponsorship opportunities for corporate sponsors etc.

The majority of people doing the bucket collections are individuals doing their bit, but at the same time it needs something to feed back into. John down the road who agrees to give up a few hours to shake a bucket isn't going to be deciding what the best structure on cancer support services is to maximise reach, etc.

You can't have more accountability without paying the overheads of the staff that entails (e.g. accountants); you also can't have a national or international charity ran on low wages — the amount you'll lose in inefficiencies would make it a non-runner.

mathepac

franktheplank wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0522/1224316503985.html

basically the legislation was brought in for charity regulation but the funding has not been put in place so that the actual inspection and regulation can take place. so essentially they are unregulated.

That's not the same thing.

That legislation is aimed at compelling charities to make their financial information public, which in turn would differentiate them from other private companies.

Like other companies, they must account to the Revenue for taxation and other financial matters, and are supervised (by whom one wonders) on the non-compete qualification Revenue lays (?) lays down.

Irishcrx

murpho999 wrote: »

If a person is worth €145k a year in one organisation then they won't work for another for €85k

If a CEO on €145k can achieve revenue growth or cost savings of 10% then they are worth the extra money.

I don't understand why people don't get this!

So an interview you expect this.

A) What's Your Current salary?

€145k

A) We can only pay you €85k and we're a charity.

Ok that's fine I'll take the pay cut.

Nail on the head here I think. At the end of the day these charities are doing good work and they are huge companies. Huge companies require trained , experienced and highly competent people to have success, chairites even more so.

They have to have the best people at the helm in order to drive the company forward and provide the service they are weather it be Sky , Google , Concern , Irish heart etc and to have the best you have to pay for the best that's the way of the world.

It's naive to think that a top CEO would take a 70 percent pay cut just to work for a charity, now he may be a good person , may love to one day do charity work but he also probably has a way of life , family and living.

Be honest now , in that position no matter how good your heart was would you take that high a pay cut just to work for a charity instead of a ltd company?

Deskjockey

murpho999 wrote: »

If a person is worth €145k a year in one organisation then they won't work for another for €85k

If a CEO on €145k can achieve revenue growth or cost savings of 10% then they are worth the extra money.

I don't understand why people don't get this!

So an interview you expect this.

A) What's Your Current salary?

€145k

A) We can only pay you €85k and we're a charity.

Ok that's fine I'll take the pay cut.

Here's the interview I'd like to see happening

A We can only pay you €85k and we're a charity.
Applicant 1: Sorry will stay in private sector so
Applicant 2: Sorry will stay in private sector so
Applicant 3: Great/ when can I start??

Applicant 3 is hired.

Eventually enough charities do this to force chief execs pay down to an excellent wage like 85k

145k is a bonkers amount to be paying to any staff member in a charity, the money should be going to the end recipients not some (well meaning) fat cat

Feathers

Deskjockey wrote: »

Here's the interview I'd like to see happening

A We can only pay you €85k and we're a charity.
Applicant 1: Sorry will stay in private sector so
Applicant 2: Sorry will stay in private sector so
Applicant 3: Great/ when can I start??

Applicant 3 is hired.

Eventually enough charities do this to force chief execs pay down to an excellent wage like 85k

145k is a bonkers amount to be paying to any staff member in a charity, the money should be going to the end recipients not some (well meaning) fat cat

Again though, the point is that that's an emotive attitude to take to wages. You'd prefer to hire applicant 3 purely because you don't want to pay over €X to a 'fat cat executive' — What happens though if his underpar performance results in a 50% loss in funds to end recipients?

Charities are non-profit in so far as the profit generated goes to the cause rather than to shareholders; it doesn't mean though that they don't operate like any other business of a similar size. It's supply & demand, charities (like any other business) are starting at the minimum wage they can for a position & upping that until they can afford someone good enough to fill the role, not the other way around.

Our man in Havana

I have heard that the bucket shakers are on 10% of the take.