Charity Christmas Cards NAS

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Here's an idea.

...Don't buy them if you feel offended by NAS selling them.  

(Most charities publish Christmas cards.  At least four of the six that I support on a monthly basis do.  In addition to some additional income, it also acts as a little bit of advertising and promotion for the charity.)

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Do you buy these cards without knowing how much of your money is going to the charity or have you researched it beforehand ?

Paull said:

I find it very hard to accept that people actually buy charity cards without knowing what percentage of the price they are buying at is going direct to the charity and even more harder to accept that charities have the gall not to display such information on the sales page.. it's like they are saying 'if you buy these cards for £3.95 then some of the money (although we are not going to tell you how much) will go to charity', and the person buying is saying 'I am going to buy these cards for £3.95 because some of the money, (although I don't know exactly how much and I am not even going to question how much either because I really don't care) will go to charity'

I just wondered...if colour printing on card is so expensive then how come I can get a pack of 40 Christmas cards at several places in the high street for £1...also I have worked in printing, I know the costs, even the best cards only cost pennies each to produce.

I can't see the logic in not being transparent unless there is something to hide.

Intenseworld - not everything - but almost everything these days, the press, the police, charities, businesses, polticians - time after time all we see is corruption.

Here's an idea.

...Don't buy them if you feel offended by NAS selling them.  

(Most charities publish Christmas cards.  At least four of the six that I support on a monthly basis do.  In addition to some additional income, it also acts as a little bit of advertising and promotion for the charity.)

I find it very hard to accept that people actually buy charity cards without knowing what percentage of the price they are buying at is going direct to the charity and even more harder to accept that charities have the gall not to display such information on the sales page.. it's like they are saying 'if you buy these cards for £3.95 then some of the money (although we are not going to tell you how much) will go to charity', and the person buying is saying 'I am going to buy these cards for £3.95 because some of the money, (although I don't know exactly how much and I am not even going to question how much either because I really don't care) will go to charity'

I just wondered...if colour printing on card is so expensive then how come I can get a pack of 40 Christmas cards at several places in the high street for £1...also I have worked in printing, I know the costs, even the best cards only cost pennies each to produce.

I can't see the logic in not being transparent unless there is something to hide.

Intenseworld - not everything - but almost everything these days, the press, the police, charities, businesses, polticians - time after time all we see is corruption.

Not everything is a conspiracy theory!

Paull said:

I don't know about anyone else, but personally I find it borderline deceit that you go to buy charity christmas cards online and you cannot even find out anywhere on the page or entire site any details about how much percentage wise actually goes to the charity, even here in the NAS shop, come to think about it what percentage of any profit from any product sold by NAS goes to the charity?

We publish our accounts openly every year. We're obliged by law not to waste the charity's money on bad deals, and the accounts disclose how we've raised and spent our funds. Conversely, we're expected to raise money to continue pursuing our charitable aims, and selling things is an entirely legitimate and accepted way to do that.

I don't have an exact figure for the Christmas cards specifically. However, full-colour printing on card is not cheap. Our publications department tell me that our profits from the cards are quite slim, simply because of high production and distribution costs. However, we have an established market, where people actively look forward to buying our cards each year. This ensures that we can raise some funds through card sales each year, and the cards themselves also serve a small but valuable purpose in awareness-raising.

My logic is that not seeing the percentage means it is being hidden, which means it is being hidden for a reason, the only reason can be that they don't want you to see it, and the only reason they don't want you to see it is because it's so low that it will put you off buying and the only reason it is so low is because the majority of the money is being syphoned off elsewhere - such as into other companies - no doubt with shareholders who are also involved with those charities.

That's a completely unfounded accusation. We're required by law to get the best deal, and there is certainly no hidden personal profit here. All the profits from card sales are treated as charitable fundraising, and go directly to support the work of the organisation.

I hope this clarifies matters.

Regards,

Alex R - mod

Paull said:

I don't know about anyone else, but personally I find it borderline deceit that you go to buy charity christmas cards online and you cannot even find out anywhere on the page or entire site any details about how much percentage wise actually goes to the charity, even here in the NAS shop, come to think about it what percentage of any profit from any product sold by NAS goes to the charity ?

My logic is that not seeing the percentage means it is being hidden, which means it is being hidden for a reason, the only reason can be that they don't want you to see it, and the only reason they don't want you to see it is because it's so low that it will put you off buying and the only reason it is so low is because the majority of the money is being syphoned off elsewhere - such as into other companies - no doubt with shareholders who are also involved with those charities.

Before making wild and unsubstantiated accusations, you could have contacted the charity and asked them first.  

That's my point Crystal, I was about to buy these cards and expected transparency regarding how much of the price goes directly to the charity,- it could be 90%, it could be 10p per pack, its a huge difference so people should rightly expect to see this amount clearly on the page when they are buying them.

Not seeing this amount/percentage means it must be hidden - therefore as silly as it sounds ...anyone who buys them is being deceived. I can only deduce that hiding this amount means it must be miniscule because if it was high then it would be publicised more as it would undoubtedly increase sales.

Personally I think to produce a christmas card is a matter of 2 or 3 pence each at most, so NAS selling a pack of ten for £3.95 should mean a few quid at least coming in.

Hi - I haven't any idea how much money the nas get from the sale of each pack of cards.   I suppose the cards are helpful to the nas in that (a) they get an unknown amount from the sale of each pack and (b), it helps to publicise the nas if you notice who the card is produced for.   I remember a few yrs ago a newspaper publicised how much various charities got per card/pack.  If I remember correctly it wasn't a lot.  Maybe the nas shd let us know.  They must think it's worthwhile because they're on sale every yr.

I've notcied that other charities do this too.