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

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Christian Aid are way too "Christian" and not enough about the aid. They will give help and not just bibles, but I`d rather the help didn`t come with the bible at all. Action Aid are a British charity who help without enforcing specific Western religions, and I`d suggest looking at them too.

[(Anonymous)]

for the record, Christian Aid have never given a bible to anyone. Christian Aid works with people most in need irrespetive of their religion and never promotes Christianity. Indeed many of the third parties (or 'partners') they work through have Islamic staff in Islamic countries. The 'Christian' in Christian Aid is that it came out of the UK churches.