How to avoid unwanted gifts

The exchanging of gifts at Christmas brings with it the awkwardness of what to do with an unwanted gift. Do you pretend to like it? Do you return it or perhaps give it away?  We all get gift giving wrong sometimes – it is hard to choose the right present and wanting to achieve the element of surprise means you cannot ask the recipient what they most want.

There are no such excuses when it comes to giving a gift to a charity. 

If you read the research, charities are clear that what they want is an unrestricted donation so that they can chose how best to spend it and will most likely spend it on their core costs. It can sometimes be difficult for them to say this to you directly as they are trying to second guess what you would be happy with – think of a teenager coming up with gift ideas for Grandma when what they really want is cash.  If it is important for you to know exactly how your donation will be spent, ask and the charity should be able to tell you what item, staff role or project is a current priority for them. Many of them will already have come up with some packages to help you e.g. £15 or £200 or £2,000 or £10,000 will pay for …

When donors direct how a donation can be used, without consulting the charity, it can cause difficulty. For example, in one recent example, people with good intentions donated clothes and shoes to a small charity supporting refugees. The stretched charity staff and volunteers were diverted from their usual work to spend time getting rid of unwanted items when actually what the charity really needed was money to pay volunteer expenses and the utility bills and extra staff hours to keep their centre open longer to cope with the rise in demand of refugees seeking help. In other examples I have seen generous gifts left in a will cause nothing but frustration as they were so tightly tied to a project that was already fully funded or a piece of work that was not the most needed.

So to avoid the difficulties associated with unwanted gifts this year, do the best you can to ensure your donation brings smiles all round. Check out the charity and their impact. When you are confident they are good, give a donation with no strings attached. I am sure they will be delighted to tell you how they spent it.

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises funders and philanthropists on giving strategies and processes; selecting causes and charities; assessments and impact monitoring. Services for charities include external perception reviews; bid reviews; training for fundraisers and non-fundraisers involved in bids. E: emma@emmabeeston.co.uk; T: emmabeeston01