Why So Many Charity Shops?

AgathaC said:

Thanks computerman for your response to my query above, my local charity shop is St Vincent de Paul.

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According to this they will run out of money soon.

I might be going off on a tangent on this, but two seperate people I know have recently told me they would not contribute to SVDP again. They were both adament that the charity was being taken advantage of by people looking for money to pay bills etc, when the reality was that they didn't really need it. I know this may sound like rumour, but it was just strange that both people had very specific examples of this.


http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/svp-to-run-out-of-cash-reserves-after-christmas-164250.html

There was a story earlier in the year which showed the big profits that can be made from old clothes/charity shops - a private UK firm with the contract to operate the Salvatian Army's clothing banks made £10M profit in 3-4 years of operation while the SA has got £16M - UK based so the numbers would be scaled back here but still, big numbers for a private firm when you think that givers expect that they are helping out a charity not a private enterprise.

http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/i...-deal&catid=155:nonprofit-newswire&Itemid=986

My sister in law volunteered with SVDP a few years ago at Christmas. She was driving around delivering hampers to families just before Christmas. She said a lot of the houses had much bigger tvs than she did and things like x-boxes,etc. Not so much poor, as poor choices.

Shawady said:

According to this they will run out of money soon.

I might be going off on a tangent on this, but two seperate people I know have recently told me they would not contribute to SVDP again. They were both adament that the charity was being taken advantage of by people looking for money to pay bills etc, when the reality was that they didn't really need it. I know this may sound like rumour, but it was just strange that both people had very specific examples of this.


http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/svp-to-run-out-of-cash-reserves-after-christmas-164250.html

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Shawady, My atitude would be (rightly or wrongly) that those giving their time to the charities free of charge should be supported and commended.
There are no doubt undeserving people exploiting the charitable works of the various charities.
However, I believe they are in the minority. Years ago I had tenants who paid there rent on time, went to the pub weekends and still got the VDP to pay for their ESB bill!