Originally Posted by
Best Ferret
I know from a previous thread that there are some Change for Good experts as members here so I have a question I haven't seen covered elsewhere:
Is the money raised from Change for Good ringfenced for specific projects or does it get tipped into the overall Unicef pot? The reason I ask is that I have always avoided contributing because I dislike the way Unicef generally spends its money. I was in one recovering African country recently at a good restaurant which had 4 brand spanking new spotless top of the range Landcruisers in the car park, each with a driver. Inside the restaurant were 4 well-fed Unicef officials, so one per vehicle. I'm afraid I've seen that before more times than I can count. I have no problem assisting charities where I can see the direct benefit - I support one very well run educational project in Sierra Leone - but I'm not going to assist Toyota's profit line.
Quite often companies (like Toyota) will sponsor charities with their own products (like brand new cars). Hard to say in this case if the cars were bought or gifted but you can be assured that Unicef has to scrutinize what they spend.
I know form somebody who has worked at Unicef that even at senior levels they are usually only allowed to fly economy on long haul (they sometimes get miles granted by airlines to upgrade) and I know they stay in pretty average hotels.
I have given to BA's change for good in the past. I agree that it's nice to know exactly where you money is spent but that is much harder with larger organisations. One thing I never realized is that smaller charities often leverage the infrastructure that larger organisations have in place. Distribution networks, logistics, people on the ground etc etc are all costly to establish and maintain but are needed to realize any project.
It is an interesting question to see if BA has any specific goals or projects within Unicef it supports and maybe one of the BA lurkers could let us know (I haven't done a search on Change for Good on the forum but I'm sure if that is answered someone will point us in the right direction!).