Fair enough I can accept that.
Though the sick and disabled need some sort of champion to fight their corner. Not just to fight the Government, but society in general.

As for your point about starting a Charity.

I think the DWP would whip anyone in who did before they could say the word charity and take away what benefits they may be having. You seem to have neglected to think of the possible inability to work as the majority of people on here seem to be in that catagory

You can't have it all ways. If you don't like the charities that are out there, start one. If you're a member of a charity and you don't like where it gets its money from, offer an alternative source of funding. If you can't do either, the sad fact of life is that you're stuck with what other people are able and willing to do.

However, starting a charity doesn't of itself stop you getting any benefits. I have volunteered for a variety of charities in a variety of contexts, including starting a charity and later also turning it into a company (still charitable) and it has never affected my benefits.

The bottom line with charities is that they are about money. If they weren't they wouldn't be a charity, they'd be some other sort of not-for-profit organisation. Being a charity is no more and no less than a vehicle for people called trustees to legally own money and property on behalf of other people called beneficiaries and to obtain certain tax breaks in the process. The aims of the charity have to fall within certain legal provisions and are mainly for some sort of public benefit, for example the relief of poverty or the care of the sick. If there's no assets, there's no charity.

A charity cannot be solely for political campaign purposes, although a charity set up for other purposes can engage in certain political activities such as lobbying in furtherance of its charitable aims. If you want an organisation whose sole purpose is political lobbying, you don't want a charity.

But back to the question of the inability to work. You do what you can and if that isn't enough to achieve what you want, you have to live with it. This world isn't fair. If you're too incapacitated to do something, you're too incapacitated to do it, and state benefits aren't payable to hire someone to do your campaigning for you. There is public money available for charities once you get them started, but you don't like public funding, do you?

So then that comes back to those nasty things called volunteers. You know, the people that care enough to do stuff they're not paid for but that someone wants doing. Like people that volunteer their time as trustees of charities or as committee members of non-charitable campaigning groups. The ones that volunteer to raise the money and send out the literature and do all the stuff that no one else is willing or able to do.

But if you are relying on volunteers, you are relying on people that are only going to give their time for something they get something out of, be that work experience or the satisfaction of doing something they really care about.

Charities are like everything else. They do what the people involved with them want them to do. If you don't have the time or energy to get involved, then however unfair that may seem, you're reliant on those that do to listen to what you have to say and act on it, the same as if you aren't able to get into your polling station, you just have to rely on others to vote in the MP you want.

Well what I see of charities I dont like.
I seem to never find the one marked "funds destined for unemployed discriminated against upper middle class while single male ex public schoolboy singlke person not eligible for Council Housing one"!
I do see fat over fed women in Surrey having fancy gold pens printed with the name of their charity shop whilst greedily taking £1000s in poor old peoples "unwanted"good everyday without so much as a nod and a thank you-and re selling them for profit and throwing half the useable stuff away then yelling at tramps for retrieving a pair of socks!
It seems that the charity is all going somehwhere but not to the deserving-how many gold coins handed in or war medals "go missing"?Are receipts ever issued?
I do notice them arriving in £35,000 SUVs and Chelsea Tractor in the car park round the back for "a days work."
Also they seem to get an enormous number of bequests from little old ladies leaving entire estates worth £millions every month.
I mean just how much money do you need to run a small lab with 100 testubes?
I also notice them leaving at night with handfuls of plastic bags stuffed with designer clothes that theyve "bought"(make up your own mad price)by tossing 50p in the till!!!!!!!

I saw a ad for a CEO of scope, salary around 160 THOUSAND a year.

I would not be suprised if other major charities pay similar amounts, any one know?

Hi,

This discussion is drifting off topic, and I don't think it's really related to benefits.

However, as it was started before Steve Donnison introduced the new policy on not accepting discussion threads which are not benefits related, we will leave it open, rather than lock it as I previously decided.

Jim