Monthly income turns to charity greed
Posted by: mermaid
22nd Oct 2009 11:50pm
This was met with much distaste amongst the large pool of volunteers, who questioned why? The manager shared the same view and set off to identify the need vs greed syndrome and this is what we learned.......
more than $210 billion of institutionalised ''charity'' is now part of Australia's society and is embedded in the economy rather than being an optional extra. Old-fashioned charity is just $9 billion, 4 per cent of the total or less than 3 per cent if we acknowledge governments' financial support to charities.
There are approximately 10,400 charities in Australia with almost 12,000 outlets or branches.
120,000 staff are employees vs tens of thousands of volunteers; this figure does not include volunteers who work for schools, clubs and associations. Total wages are about $3.9 billion.
Salvation Army (eastern and southern divisions only) revenue approx $650 million, smaller average less than $800,000 per year (a extraordinary figure).
Compare these figures to an average business employing staff, with a revenue of $3.8 million - or approx five times the average charity.
Reality is charities are a business and these figures are Australian, given the number of charity organisations in Australia also exist worldwide the math just does not add up.
When presenting these figures to senior management, the manager was told rising inflation restricted the charity from performing.
The result, the manager and 3/4's of the pooled volunteers left and within 2 years the charity have employed 4 managers. The days of charity truly have gone!
What are your thoughts?
sherri
- 22nd Nov 2011 01:42pm
OOPS! that last little bit makes no sense at all unless you understand that I was talking about how I know both sides of the coin re charities having worked in one.
And while I think that where possible volunteers should be used, there are some jobs that most volunteers would not have the training to do. And few of those who are trained are able to work voluntarily. My comment was that I had felt very priveleged to be able to do something that I beleived in so much that I would have done for free if I had been financially able to do so. (but I had decided that it did not really fit into that par of the conversation and had moved it, but had forgotten to delete it)
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