How inefficient is it to give to telephone or door-to-door fundraisers?

[fivemack]

Someone phoned me 'from {name inaudible} on behalf of Christian Aid' this evening, and informed me that there were many orphans in Zambia as a result of the HIV epidemic, that the cost of sending one of them to school was £86 a year, and that it might be nice to give Christian Aid seven pounds a month to this aim.

My naive assumption is that the right answer is 'yes, that would be nice, I'll send Christian Aid a cheque for n*£86, n depending on how rich I'm feeling, at Christmas', on the grounds that a telephone fundraiser might well take a cut of any donations to cover their running costs; does anyone know how much of my seven pounds a month would actually get to Christian Aid?

(I have a fiver-a-month standing order on behalf of a charity working for blind people, which I made as a result of a door-to-door fund-raiser, and I fear there's a rather larger cut being taken out of that; I should probably kill the standing order and make one directly to the charity)

Comments

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

No idea about the fundraising overheads, but at least you should do these things through Gift Aid to get the extra tax money. You can also invoke Gift Aid for up to 6 years retrospectively on donations you have already given.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

If you donate to charity shops, it's worth signing one of their tax forms as well. I have a card from the PDSA which enables them to claim back the tax whenever I drop stuff at the local branch.