# Another shakedown from DOGSTRUST



## beanc (Sep 9, 2011)

Hi,

Arriving home again at my cottage this weekend I discovered a further two appeal letters from DOGSTRUST. I am in receipt of these quite copiously throughout the year.
I work away from my home during the week at an accountancy practice in Suffolk so I cannot own a dog, but would love to  and indeed I am very fond of dogs. I have always donated well to DOGSTRUST in the past in the belief that they are always on their uppers and constantly in need of financial support.

Recently I have undertaken some financial work for a local charity and part of this involved filing their accounts with the Charity Commission. The Commission has a website where this is possible and where the general public can view the annual returns of any UK charity.

So; I checked the current state of affairs with DOGSTRUST only to find that contrary to being in dire financial straights these people have EIGHTY MILLION POUNDS on deposit in reserve PLUS a further TWENTY FOUR MILLION POUNDS set aside in reserve for building. I also noted the fact that they spent at least a third of their income last year in generating further income  and I ask  is this actually legal?

You can check the financial status yourself if you wish by using the following link;

The Charity Commission for England and Wales

You then enter the name of the charity DOGS TRUST (charity number 227523).

It was my understanding  admittedly from my meagre knowledge of the rules and regulations  that charities were not allowed to manage their affairs in such a way and have to spend their incomes on their respective charitable missions.

Is it not time that these people used the enormous amount of money they have in their coffers to support the less-favoured and smaller rescue centres  those which are REALLY crying out for funds? Or, perhaps it is time that we ALL said NO!

I would urge you to copy this text and email it to anyone you may know who pays these people on a regular basis.


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## Set_Nights (Sep 13, 2010)

It's the same for a lot of the big charities... RSPCA for example. None of the millions that are donated actually make their way to the individual rescue centres, they are left to fend for themselves.


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## newfiesmum (Apr 21, 2010)

A few years ago I sent a one off christmas cheque to the NSPCC after seeing their christmas appeal. They spent it on phoning me up and writing to me asking for more. I swore I would never give to a large, national charity again.

It is disgraceful that an animal charity to have all that money stashed away. Can't they find any dogs to spend it on? I am sure I could help them do that.


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## DAVIDnCASS (Jul 19, 2011)

That is quite disgusting, they have made hundreds and thousands of people who care donate to them believing they will genuinely be making a difference but no... Just adding to the 00's on the end of their bank statement.

I can think of a hundred ways to spend that money to better the lives of those animals in care. If I had that sort of money, it would certainly go towards those in need!! :cursing:


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## slakey (May 9, 2009)

Disgusting I thought DogsTrust was one of the good charities, clearly not 

I'd love to set my own up someday.


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## Honey Bee (Mar 29, 2011)

OMG I am in a state of shock about this. Why aren't they spending the money on the dogs! Or on more buildings for housing the thousands of dogs they could take in with that kind of money. Thankfully I dont send them money but my mum sponsored one of their dogs until recently. Explains why they can afford those glossy telly ads!


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## hope (May 25, 2011)

i was giving money to a donkey charity abroad but then i realised after they were sending letters asking if i could donate more something was quite not right 

so now i have decided my charity starts from home with the money being used for the care and up keep of my own animals .because you dont know what or where your money is going .


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## Spellweaver (Jul 17, 2009)

beanc said:


> Hi,
> 
> Arriving home again at my cottage this weekend I discovered a further two appeal letters from DOGSTRUST. I am in receipt of these quite copiously throughout the year.
> I work away from my home during the week at an accountancy practice in Suffolk so I cannot own a dog, but would love to  and indeed I am very fond of dogs. I have always donated well to DOGSTRUST in the past in the belief that they are always on their uppers and constantly in need of financial support.
> ...


Yes, it's definitely an eye opener. And if you want another eye-opener, look for the RSPCA on the same link - but be sure you are sitting down when you do. Makes the Dogs Trust look quite poor does the RSPCA :cursing:


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## tsgray70 (Sep 23, 2009)

Wow

This is completely the opposite with my local dog charity that we support when we can. They had a total income of around £500,000 and had 36k left at the end of the year.

They rehome over 500 animals a year. Great place and it is clear that they all love what they do.

Leicester Animal Aid - Dog and Cat Rescue Leicestershire > Home

I used to give to the RSPCA by direct debit but stopped it after the first call i ever made to them. Its just a business to them.


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## Ian B (Jul 19, 2011)

tsgray70 said:


> Wow
> 
> This is completely the opposite with my local dog charity that we support when we can. They had a total income of around £500,000 and had 36k left at the end of the year.
> 
> ...


Same thing with the RSPCA here, I cancelled my direct debit after I'd read about something they did, or rather refused to do, which disgusted me. That was some 3 years ago yet I still get phone calls asking me to reconsider, even after my asking them not to call again as I wouldn't change my mind 

The last call was fairly recent and followed the usual *this is what we're doing/why we need your money* spiel, interspersed every few minutes with requests for ever decreasing amounts of money. I told the caller my spare cash now went to a local cat rehoming centre, to which he said "_They must be very grateful_" I told him they were and also had one big advantage over the RSPCA. He asked what that was and was told "_They don't come knocking on my door or phone me if they haven't heard from me for a while_"

What really sticks in my craw is that it's not actually the RSPCA calling, they employ companies to do it their behalf and if memory serves regarding this last call, this company will be paid £70k for doing so if they reached their donation target.

As you quite rightly said, it's a business to them, imo the actual charitable animal work is just a front.

Ian


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## foxiesummer (Feb 4, 2009)

When the Iceland situation arose I was amazed to hear the Cats protection league had something like 30 million invested, of course they lost it all. Individual branches of the RSPCA are self funding and my local one is run solely by volunteers. The Romford branch were in the past in trouble financially and with the help of locals and a grant from rspca HQ managed to save the branch. If you leave money in your will to the RSPCA have to specify the branch otherwise it will go toHQ. Any money left will be divided between the branches in that county as for Cumbria thats four. So HQ gets half and the rest is divided between the four branches. Out of each £1000, £500 goes to HQ and the branches get £125, not a lot is  it.


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## Spellweaver (Jul 17, 2009)

foxiesummer said:


> When the Iceland situation arose I was amazed to hear the Cats protection league had something like 30 million invested, of course they lost it all. Individual branches of the RSPCA are self funding and my local one is run solely by volunteers. The Romford branch were in the past in trouble financially and with the help of locals and a grant from rspca HQ managed to save the branch. If you leave money in your will to the RSPCA have to specify the branch otherwise it will go toHQ. Any money left will be divided between the branches in that county as for Cumbria thats four. So HQ gets half and the rest is divided between the four branches. Out of each £1000, £500 goes to HQ and the branches get £125, not a lot is it.


It's not - especially when the person donating the money thinks it is going to go to help animals, not sit in a bank vault accruing interest for more money to sit in a bank vault.


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## EmCHammer (Dec 28, 2009)

The DT are currently building a new rescue centre in leicestershire.. And have recently renovated one of their other branches that I know about.

They help and support our small rescue in non financial ways and often take on difficult dogs from us or dogs in need of expensive procedures so I think they are some of the good guys with the work they do

it is an awful lot of money though isn't it.. I do always support small struggling organisations though who often are on the breadline.

Saw yesterday that some famous fashion designer had left hundreds of thousands to the blue cross... What Rochdale Dog Rescue and some of the hundreds of little local organisations couldn't do with that split up between us.


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## Jasper's Bloke (Oct 30, 2009)

I can totally understand the need for them to have reserves in place but £84m is extreme to the point of being offensive. Surely with that amount of cash on hand the interest alone shouldn't be far from enough to take care of the day to day running costs, making the organisation almost self sufficient.

I can also understand the need to spend a significant portion of their income on generating more income, basic business strategy, speculate to accumulate and DT certainly does all it can to get noticed, I wonder how much one of those 90 secod TV ads cost's. But when you are not using the money you accumulate to do the job that you have promised the people who gave it to you that it would be doing, you are taking the p!$$. Surely this is false advertising?

Imagine paying someone to paint your house and only paint one wall, but they keep the money just in case someone else's wall needs painting someday! Ridiculous.


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## beris (Aug 30, 2010)

This just doesn't apply to 'Dogs Trust' or 'RSPCA'. It applies to nearly all well known charities, Like Marie curie, Cancer, etc etc. All can be checked on the Charity commission site.


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## 1290423 (Aug 11, 2011)

Heck! I had two letters also from DT - thought it were maybe because earlier ontheis year I canceled all my direct debit donations, Was actually considering setting one up again with them!
Had no idea they were so financially healthy! Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
DT


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## Spellweaver (Jul 17, 2009)

The Dogs Trust had people collecting in the local shopping centre the other day. One man approached me for money, and wouldn't just accept my "no" - he went on to tell me how they were struggling and how donations were falling. My reply to him was simple: "By how much are your donations down because you no longer have a stall at Crufts?" He didn't know - but it was always one of the busiest stands and so I'm guessing they're down by hundreds of thousands. Perhaps it's time for them to stop the over-reaction to a shock-horror-tabloid-style program that bore no resemblance to the truth, think of the dogs they are resposible for instead, and re-take up the KC's offer of a free stand at Crufts.


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## BigBearsRule (Jun 24, 2009)

I am appauled at the amount os money they have stashed away.:cursing:
Personally I supprt a local dog charity, which cares for dogs that would otherwise be PTS, http://www.shak.org.uk
I started by donating some food, then became a "halfway house" - a place for dogs to go between kennels and permanent foster homes. Finally I have started helping out at their kennels - walking dogs, painting kennels etc.


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## ClaireandDaisy (Jul 4, 2010)

There are many charities run by volunteers, scraping along on a shoestring, whose members organise boot sales and who donate their time and resources for their cause. These are the charities I support. 
I have founded and managed a small charity and know the system. Once you get over a certain income, you spend most of your time and money on sustaining the organisation. The first thing a professional fund-raiser makes is her own salary. 
Now I only get involved if I know how the organisation works. :smilewinkgrin:


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## Georgee (Sep 10, 2011)

It's a disgrace right enough, but I can never understand why animal charities get more than childrens ones or third world ones. Dogs are important but some of the terrible things that humans do


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## tsgray70 (Sep 23, 2009)

Georgee

I can only speak for myself but I think that you may have missed the point. I have no problem with people giving to animal charities instead of child or third world charities. I do object to charities not using the money for the purpose for which it was given.


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## Bellaboo1 (Aug 10, 2011)

I donate monthly to Cancer Research, NSPCC and St Johns Ambulance, only small amounts but thats all i can do right now. I would rather donate to small local animal charities. What annoys me is the amount of money that is spent on admin instead of going towards actually helping. I do homechecks and take in foster dogs for a small dog rescue, i'd like to think i'm making a difference in that way.

I have phoned before by NSPCC and Cancer Research asking for more money which i think is a bit much, they should be concentrating on canvassing those that do not donate at all.

I give small amounts but i donate to different charities rather than one large amount to one charity as i feel i can help more that way


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## kodakkuki (Aug 8, 2011)

A lady I know who works in a daycare donated monthly to the dogstrust. She helped set up a little fun day for the kids and they raised over £100 for dogstrust! She then decided to go and hand the cheque to the staff of the only dogstrust shelter here. They were apparently so delighted and grateful for the money, but asked if instead she could use the money to go to the pet store and buy them new toys and blankets and little training treats etc. because their funding wasn't going to stretch that far this year. ( this was in november I think) and a cheque would have to go to HQ so wouldn't help them at all during the winter.
So now that's how we donate to them, take them blankets and toys instead of handing them a cheque!


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## Set_Nights (Sep 13, 2010)

kodakkuki said:


> A lady I know who works in a daycare donated monthly to the dogstrust. She helped set up a little fun day for the kids and they raised over £100 for dogstrust! She then decided to go and hand the cheque to the staff of the only dogstrust shelter here. They were apparently so delighted and grateful for the money, but asked if instead she could use the money to go to the pet store and buy them new toys and blankets and little training treats etc. because their funding wasn't going to stretch that far this year. ( this was in november I think) and a cheque would have to go to HQ so wouldn't help them at all during the winter.
> *So now that's how we donate to them, take them blankets and toys instead of handing them a cheque!*


This is exactly what I was about to say . The HQ might be taking the piss but the individual shelters tend to be very genuine and run by volunteers who do really care... and who quite often are struggling for resources (shockingly I know, but true). It is not the dogs or volunteers fault that the HQ is stupid and it's a shame for them to be boycotted for this reason because at the end of the day it is the dogs that actually suffer. If you do still want to help you should donate items to the individual shelters instead of money to the HQ .


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## Set_Nights (Sep 13, 2010)

Also, to add, I don't see where the OP got these numbers from (bit of a random first post to make too )?

I have to admit I'm struggling to understand the figures provided? Where does it say what they have invested as opposed to annual income/spending? What does "charitable spending/activities" actually include?


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## Jasper's Bloke (Oct 30, 2009)

ClaireandDaisy said:


> Now I only get involved if I know how the organisation works. :smilewinkgrin:


I don't think it is a question of whether or not DT works, I still believe it does and Lilb's post would seem to prove it



Lilb said:


> Abbie is from the Dog's Trust so we get these types of letters often.
> 
> I had a feeling they'd have a stash of money after I read about the RSPCA.
> 
> ...


I think that individual centres do a fantastic job and the organisation as a whole also does a lot of work to promote rehoming and dog welfare in general, but, the question is that with such a large sum of money sitting in the bank, could they be doing more?


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## newfiesmum (Apr 21, 2010)

Georgee said:


> It's a disgrace right enough, but I can never understand why animal charities get more than childrens ones or third world ones. Dogs are important but some of the terrible things that humans do


Why? What's so special about children? In this country at least, we have a very efficient, if interfering, social services department who will always see children are cared for. I see no need whatsoever for childrens charity in this age. As to third world countries, charity begins at home in my book.



Bellaboo1 said:


> I donate monthly to Cancer Research, NSPCC and St Johns Ambulance, only small amounts but thats all i can do right now. I would rather donate to small local animal charities. What annoys me is the amount of money that is spent on admin instead of going towards actually helping. I do homechecks and take in foster dogs for a small dog rescue, i'd like to think i'm making a difference in that way.
> 
> I have phoned before by NSPCC and Cancer Research asking for more money which i think is a bit much, they should be concentrating on canvassing those that do not donate at all.
> 
> I give small amounts but i donate to different charities rather than one large amount to one charity as i feel i can help more that way


Personally I would give your donations to the smaller charities. I will never donate to a national charity again, especially after my experience with the NSPCC and a documentary I saw years ago telling about the big fancy offices and big fancy cars provided to the staff of Oxfam.



kodakkuki said:


> A lady I know who works in a daycare donated monthly to the dogstrust. She helped set up a little fun day for the kids and they raised over £100 for dogstrust! She then decided to go and hand the cheque to the staff of the only dogstrust shelter here. They were apparently so delighted and grateful for the money, but asked if instead she could use the money to go to the pet store and buy them new toys and blankets and little training treats etc. because their funding wasn't going to stretch that far this year. ( this was in november I think) and a cheque would have to go to HQ so wouldn't help them at all during the winter.
> So now that's how we donate to them, take them blankets and toys instead of handing them a cheque!


As long as they use them and not sell them.



Jasper's Bloke said:


> I don't think it is a question of whether or not DT works, I still believe it does and Lilb's post would seem to prove it
> 
> I think that individual centres do a fantastic job and the organisation as a whole also does a lot of work to promote rehoming and dog welfare in general, but, the question is that with such a large sum of money sitting in the bank, could they be doing more?


Yes, they could. Certain breed rescues are bulging with unwanted staffies and huskies because they were the latest thing; they could give some of the money to them.


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## kodakkuki (Aug 8, 2011)

Newfiesmum,
It is items they have requested most of the time- id call and see what they are short of before I go so they are not blanketless but have an abundance of toys- that would be useless! 
They are sent stock to sell from HQ if that particular shelters a shop, so if they were selling items they were given as a donated gift, then that money must be Very needed and would stay within that shelter anyway; the hardworking, devoted people doing all the work in the shelters (and not sitting looking at numbers in the screen) are so grateful of any donation, I wouldn't mind if they sold the blankets to fund a bag of food they have run out of, although if that was the case, I would have been asked to buy the bag of food instead of blankets. So I can't see that being an issue...

Also, Lilb,
I am actually gonna apply with my dad to do some of the weekly 'shippings' of dogs to england; it is a fantasic scheme and lovely to here 1st hand how successful it is!


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## Georgee (Sep 10, 2011)

Saw a tv advert the other night with some pop group advertising the dog trust. Looks like big business now not sure how dogs trust started? And do they really never put a dog down, that must make for a huge upkeep given the age dogs live to sometimes. Not sure an entire life in a rehoming kennel is any kind of life for a dog.


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## Cloudygirl (Jan 9, 2011)

can you copy over the figures you are looking at because I can't see those when I go to the link. I'm looking at different figures.


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## 1290423 (Aug 11, 2011)

tsgray70 said:


> Georgee
> 
> I can only speak for myself but I think that you may have missed the point. I have no problem with people giving to animal charities instead of child or third world charities. I do object to charities not using the money for the purpose for which it was given.


my thoughts exactly! and as for the children charities! nope! I have nothing against them - but it is the same appeal year after year after year after year! PErhaps some of the money we donate should be invested in condoms! Anf yes! I give!


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## Adon (Aug 10, 2011)

Having worked with deprived kids all my life could not agree less. If we cared as much about children as we do about animals the world would be a better place, oh and there would be less animal cruelty is more focus was on helping kids turn into healthy caring individuals:smile5:


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## newfiesmum (Apr 21, 2010)

Adon said:


> Having worked with deprived kids all my life could not agree less. If we cared as much about children as we do about animals the world would be a better place, oh and there would be less animal cruelty is more focus was on helping kids turn into healthy caring individuals:smile5:


How do you define deprived? There are always people willing to help deprived children, but governments and the like have no interest in helping deprived or neglected animals.

There is a wonderful foster system for children, though it is sad that it has to be used, run by the government. There is no such thing for fostering dogs and cats, that has to be done by animal rescue centres who rely solely on donations.

If children were dumped in orphanages and badly treated like they were in Victorian times and before that, I would agree with you. But they are not, not in this country anyway.

I don't know why we even have an NSPCC or a Dr Barnardo's any more.


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