A cancer amongst charities

Last night in the pub we were approached by an ageing woman wearing a cowboy hat and a waistcoat covered with badges. As if that wasn't enough to scare us away, she then thrust a collecting tin in our direction and asked for donations to Cancer Research (or whatever it's called these days).

Now I think it's rude to just ignore these people, so while my foolish friends all put their hands in their pockets I explained that I never supported cancer charities and maybe she should consider collecting for some smaller local charities instead (like those represented around the table).

It turns out she's been doing the rounds of the local cities week-in week-out for years. She did Wakefield, Barnsley and Huddersfield one week, and Sheffield and Doncaster the other, one evening in each city. She claimed to have raised £140,000.

While I can only admire her dedication and persistence in some ways, at the end of the day I find this sort of practice both perverse and divisive. I've decided to use this strong language – maybe a bit stronger than I really need to, but it does serve to emphasise the point in a way that needs to be done occasionally.

So here I get the chance to explain myself in a bit more detail:

1. OK so I've spent ten years working with vulnerable and disadvantaged people, but I put the emphasis on working with them, and I think that charities need to get away from the patronising approach to helping the needy.
2. Really being a charity is a tax choice. If you are a registered charity (or you have charitable status in whatever way) it means you enjoy certain tax breaks. Yes, it also means that you agree to follow charity law, including limiting your work to certain areas and not making a profit, but at the end of the day you agree to do this so you can enjoy the tax breaks.
3. Cancer charities spend a lot of money on expensive laboratories, highly paid researchers, and glossy marketing. The people we are supposed to be working with are rarely in sight, except maybe as guinea-pigs. I support hands-on, grounded charities that are working directly with people and with volunteers and who see the value in cheaply photocopied annual reports or newsletters.
   
4. The big headline charities are getting more public donations and more Government contracts (see this article from 2003, no time now to search for anything more recent). This is at the expense of smaller charities and other voluntary sector organisations.
5. I don't really support street collecting, or its close relative TV campaigns. It's not all bad, but I'm not trying to give a balanced view right now. It's very easy to put 2p or £10 in a charity box, or even ring up and give £100 from your debit card, but you have very little connection with the result - it's just a feel-good thing really (and that's assuming it wasn't 2p just so the girl you're trying to impress doesn't think you're tight...)
   
6. In terms of cancer in particular there seem to be some very ironic competing urges in Government policy. Yes they are finally moving towards banning smoking, after many years campaigning, but they are still only taking small steps in this direction, and what about all the other environmental hazards that seem to increase our risk of cancer:
• holidays in the sun...
• destroying the ozone layer in our cheap planes on the way there...
• all sorts of other pollution in air and water from commerce and industry
• additives in foods
• pesticides and herbicides (on food and in the cotton in our clothes)
  
• powerful detergents and all sorts of other chemicals in our homes, offices, and in the streets
• prescription drugs
• and many others
It seems that much of our economy is based on cancer inducing chemicals, and rather than taking affirmative action to avoid these, the Government and the cancer charities seem determined to just add to the whole system - more investment in chemicals, more refusal to address the underlying problems.

There may be other issues, but that will do for now. Basically if you want to support charitable activities the best thing you can give is your time, your energy, and a bit of your human self. In most of the work I've been involved in, people are most grateful for a bit of human contact and respect, someone to talk to, someone to bring a bit of happiness and involvement into their life, something that will enable them to feel as if they've been able to make a contribution to something. I don't think these big laboratories and research projects will ever have as big an impact, and I'm quite happy to continue to give a bit of lip to the collectors who are out harassing me on my nights out.