Charity Ladies

I decided to investigate the world of the real life charity fundraising types and find out for myself.
            I have to confess, firstly, that I once was a charity fundraising type, myself.  I was on the committee of the Roundhouse, in London, which provides an arts centre for disadvantaged children and I was in charge of recruiting celebrities to the cause.  In the course of doing my job, I once had to invite Sir Bob Geldof to come and see what we were doing and maybe give us some help.  Being one of the most famous society charity types on the planet, I thought Sir Bob would be up for a few lunches, at least, and maybe a cocktail or two, to follow.  Delighted to be mingling with the quality, at last, I offered to pick him up in a limo, or maybe even a private jet and take him to lunch, after the meeting.  But to my horror, he told me that he would drive himself, thanks, and he doesn’t do lunch.  Utterly disappointed, I fetched him a plastic cup of tea and he proceeded to dispense his wisdom and expertise for free, in our nasty portakabin.
            Undaunted by this unpleasantness, I am now contacting the cream of the Irish charity set, for my investigation.  There’s got to be some glamour to be had in the old country, even if they don’t have it in London.  And to be sure I’m in luck.  My very first contact is a real live princess and she’s offered to buy me lunch.  I’m on my way.
            Princess Purna is a real live princess, from India, so she’s allowed to be late.  The barman at the Roundwood Inn says she’s always a bit late, but she’ll be here soon.  She sweeps in, after only half an hour, apologetic and majestic, in a traditional Indian cotton dress and trousers and cute little sandals.  She kisses me and I inhale her exoticness, as she offers me oysters.  The landlady gets a hug, too.  ‘This is my second home,’ she says.  Her other home is Luggalaw, on the shores of Lough Dan, where she lives with her husband, the Honourable Gareth Browne, who sits at the other end of the table, now, with Meera, her sister, who’s visiting from India.  They’re starving, so they order food and occasionally join in the conversation.  I tell Purna that I’ve heard charity fundraising can be very glamorous.  She laughs and tells me I can count her out of that kind of thing.  I am shocked, I tell her, and ask her why would that be.  She thinks for a moment.  Then Meera answers.  ‘We have all the glamour we need, up here already,’ she says.  ‘That’s right,” Gareth agrees.  ‘Sure, if you sit in the Roundwood Inn long enough, everyone who’s anyone comes in.  I believe Pierce Brosnan is expected, later on.”  ‘That is true,’ Purna says.  “We ‘re surrounded by famous people,- John Hurt, John Boorman, Paddy Moloney.  And they’re just human beings.  When you meet a horrible one, they’re still horrible, even if they’re famous!”
            Rightly put in my place, I ask her why she’s raising money, so.  She tells me that even though her background is one of privilege, since she was very young she’s been unable to look at the world through rose-coloured glasses and ignore the poverty and deprivation in her country.
            ‘I have an intense curiosity about how people really live,” she says  “And I don’t want to spend my life at the hairdressers, or getting my nails done.’  To prove this, she allows me to examine her nails, which are dirty and unkempt, as promised.  Her hair is glossy and long, but not styled, so I believe her.  The district of Morvi, where she comes from was destroyed by an earthquake , last year, she explains, and she went on the radio, on ‘Good Morning Ireland,” to ask for money to help them rebuild.  By doing that, by simply saying what was needed, in real terms and how much it would cost, she persuaded the Irish listening public to jam the phone lines and donate £80,000.  This was enormously touching, she says.  People approached her in the street, afterwards, and tried to hand over money.  That’s the kind of place Ireland is, she says.  They have named a new village Tarapar, in honour of the Irish people.  
            ‘When you are starving, when you are poor and have children to feed, you can only think of survival,’ she says  “So all of your attention is outside of yourself, chasing food.  In situations of over-abundance, people can afford the time to look within.  And maybe, with my work, I can give people some hope of a Sattvic state, where they can afford the time to look inwards, at the creator within and find peace.  When things are desperate, people get desperate and become frantic and angry.  I would like to try and alleviate some of the poverty and in doing so, perhaps alleviate some of the anger, which is causing unrest in the world.  Even the Buddha forgot to look within, for most of his life, but when he did, when he let go of looking outside himself, he found enlightenment, and that’s why he’s shown as a laughing Buddha, because he’s found the secret and it was there all along!’
            But people are most responsive when they’re having fun, she says.  So fundraising events have got to be entertaining and uplifting.  ‘The heart opens, when you are enjoying yourself,”she says.  “So it’s vital for people to laugh, laughter opens the heart.’  Which is why she’s not against the glamour and the social side of fundraising.  “Whatever  works,’ she says.  ‘People have got to get something back.  Even people like Norma Smurfit, who give their time and energy for free, they’ve got to get something out of it, they’ve got to be allowed to have some fun!’

Norma Smurfit
Why arthritis, for you?
It started nearly twenty years ago, some friends of mine had a child with arthritis.  I hadn’t realised, at the time, that so many children are born with arthritis, but I’ve been on the committee ever since, fundraising and coming to lovely events like this one!
Somebody told me that if your name is associated with a charity, people will fall over themselves to help it!
I can twist a few arms, but I don’t think they’ll actually fall over.  I do have a lot of good friends and acquaintances who will support me.  But we always try to give them a good night, so people know they’re going to enjoy themselves.
What got you into charity work, surely you could just be swanning around having your hair done?
All my family were very into social work, I think I was born with it.  And I’ve been very lucky in life so it’s the old cliché, it’s nice to be able to give something back.
Do you get something out of giving something back?
Oh yes, most definitely!  I think it’s great to be able to give something to people who aren’t as fortunate as I am.
How about the glamour?
There’s a lot of hard work behind these things, there’s months of planning, usually, for a big event.  On the night, you want it to be as glamorous as possible, that’s what brings people along.
What gets the most response, in your experience?
I think give value for money and try to do something different, so that people enjoy the evening.
But with some causes people give a lot more money than they get value for.  Why is that?
Well, people respond to a worldwide disaster marvellously.  I’d love to organise something like Live Aid!
Would you say fundraising has a lot to do with connections?
Yes, obviously, connections are very important, especially in the business world.
And your friends are in the business world.
Some of them are, yes.
Is it worth it from a tax perspective?
For businesses, yes.

Debbie Deegan ToRussia With Love

It is extremely hard work.  But I am married to it, I live and breathe it, unfortunately for my husband.  It’s the only thing that makes me do it, I’m not on a salary.  I think that because of my own daughter being a Russian orphan, I took her for a holiday and decided that I couldn’t send her back, even if it was illegal to keep her.  I just wasn’t going to allow her to live in an orphanage again, ever.  And when I went back to visit her best friend, a year later, and saw the absolute shit-hole she was living in, I decided to get a gang of people together and do something about it.  And that was how it started.  It was a nice little Laura Ashley idea, that we had, that it was all going to be gorgeous in three months.  We would go over with nice wall-paper and frilly bed-linen and all the problems in Russia would be solved!  But three years later, we still haven’t got around to the frilly curtains.  We’ve actually taken on the government and we are trying to change the system, out there.  We don’t send out parcels, because if you do that, you’re just propping them up, and if you pull out, the whole thing falls apart.  So we’re trying to put in long term changes that will make a difference to our orphans.  My kids start at six and go through to eighteen.  So when they leave, we want to get them into a vocational college so that the girls won’t be prostitutes and the boys won’t be criminals.  It would have been so much easier to put frilly curtains on the windows, but we’ve taken the grinding route.  I don’t know how you change systems, I’m a housewife, I was in the rag trade, before I did this.  I worked for Mirror Mirror, which was fabulous and I think my work ethic was established there.  You couldn’t go sick, no matter what.  They paid you like a man, but they treated you as men were treated.  You didn’t ring in with a headache.  And once you’ve survived the rag trade you can survive anything.  After that, I gave up work and stayed at home to have babies.  My husband is a workaholic, which is why I chose to stay at home.  One of us had to give.  I decided I would see what it was like to stay at home.  I couldn’t even imagine what that was like.  Are you married?  No?  Because when you have kids, it changes your life completely.  But I’ve always got too much energy, so the idea was scary, to me.  After two or three years of that, I was ready for a change.
I am brilliant at magnetising people to me who will work for nothing, so I have a project manager and an absolute genius who runs a prison here, so he knows all about running institutions.
Fundraising is the hardest part of the whole thing.  It’s a bloody bitch.  The people that would be socially connected, the people who have married money, it might be easy for, but we are ordinary people.
You didn’t marry money?
Unfortunately, I didn’t marry money!  I married a gorgeous man, who has wonderful patience, but if he had as much money, maybe I’d be better off!  No, we have to raise the money and we do raise it.  We have the obligatory ball, every year, which is a great money-spinner.  People have a fab time at our ball.  And we had a walk, last year, from Helsinki to St Petersburg, that raised a fortune for us.  It was a very spiritual thing, because they walked into Russia, through the forest, it was amazing.  Then we have a stockbroker’s lunch, every Christmas.  You are constantly trying to think of new ways to raise money.  And everything is very strictly monitored, and rightly so, but that means you have to account for every penny.  We have a hundred and eighty sponsor families in Ireland, who look after the children in the orphanage.  The admin is huge.
You are donating your whole life!
Yes, I am.  I am the one who is most married to it, and it never stops.
What do you get out of it?
A huge sense of satisfaction.  Huge.  There is no comparison to a normal job.  This is like your baby.  Just the joy of those children, having changed the lives of hundreds of children.  We found all the siblings of our children, which was an incredibly emotional experience.  You are dealing with a rollercoaster of emotions.  The lows are as low as the highs are high.  Some of it is horrific, but we have created  a huge family.
I get a sense of something almost spiritual.
I hate that word, but it is.  And I am not a religious person, at all.  Don’t give me priests and nuns!

Angel   Ball, Deirdre Kelly

I did purchase at the Clothesline show, at Vicar Street.  Shoes that were two sizes too big.  My  charity is in it’s sixth year and it’s called Angel’s Quest.  My eldest daughter, who’s eleven is mentally handicapped, she has something called West’s Syndrome, which is severe epilepsy.  She would have the mental age of a three year old, she’s in nappies.  She walks, just about, but she needs twenty four hour attention.  When I found myself in that situation, I came across parents, through St John Of Gods who were in dire straits.  Women who had careers and just had to give them up because they couldn’t afford full time care.  I saw families breaking up, purely because of the stress of looking after mentally handicapped children twenty four hours a day, plus your other kids have to have a life as well.  The amount of stress it causes within the family unit is incredible.  So I came across women who were pretty poorly off, with no home help whatsoever.  People who had never been on holidays, had never taken a weekend off with their husbands.  It’s very hard to find a childminder in that situation.  So we saw that there was a need and we said that we would commit to actually building the structures for Respite Homes and we would embarrass the Eastern Health Board into staffing them.  St John Of Gods manages them, which works brilliantly.  How it works is if I have a problem with my four year old, my eleven year old can go into Respite care for however long it’s needed. 
How many are you?
There’s one and a half of us.  The office is here, and I just have one person who comes in to help.  It was policy, when we started not to have any staff.
You’re saying we, but you mean you?
When we have an event, we get a committee to work on it, but all the background work is done by myself and another girl.
Have you raised loads of money?
We have.  The last cheque we handed over was a hundred thousand. Home number one is open and home number two is under construction.
What will you do, to raise the money?
We have fashion shows, we do lunches, we arrange balls and we sell Christmas cards.
Which is the most effective?
It has to be a combination of everything.
Is there a set way of doing things?
Yes, the fundraising season starts in early September and goes through to December and it’s fiercely competitive.
So how do you get one up on the other charities?
You’ve got to make sure that every event is better than the last one.  The Angel Ball is high up on the social calender, at this stage, but we’ve earned that reputation.  We take over the RDS building and we theme it for the night.  For the last one, we did a Moulin Rouge ball.  It had a casino.  We do have people who are so loyal that they come back every year, they know it’s on and they always come.  A lot of them use it for corporate entertaining.  We get between six and seven hundred people at a hundred and twenty five pounds a head.  It’s a good night, there’s dancing and entertainment.  For the last one we had trapeze artists and mime.
Do people expect a lot for their money, even though it’s for charity?
Yes.  They expect five hundred percent for the one hundred percent they put in, without a doubt.
Why is that?
There is a lot of silent big donators and they are superb, but there are others who love that special evening out and they love to dress up, it’s a social occasion.
Does it have a lot of cachet, in Irish society?
Yes.  Which ball you go to and where you are seen.  The media are very good, you can see a review, on Sunday, of the ball you were at on Saturday.  Who was at it and what they were wearing.  It’s very important, in Irish society.  IN New York, it’s even more important.  If you haven’t got a charity, you aren’t involved.  And in England.  A lot of stars are attached to charities.
Do you have any stars?
We have Damon Hill’s wife, Georgie Hill.  And we’ve had Damon at the ball and Jonathon Rhys Myers.  We get surprise celebrity guests and we don’t know until the last minute who they will be and we’re not allowed to disclose.  But we hold tables and they sneak in at the last minute.
Who books the table?
A corporate.
Does it make a difference, having celebrities attend?
Afterwards, for people who read about it, yes.  And people talk about who was there.  But overall, the Irish are good they don’t harass celebrities, they are made to feel at home.
Prince Andrew was booked to attend a fashion show for us, but when September 11 happened, he had to cancel and we had already sold it.  Everyone came, anyway.  But it would have been very special, if he had turned up.
What kind of people actually give you the most money?
Corporations.  Any company in Ireland should have a charitable trust, with the economy the way it has been.  But you would be amazed at the ones that don’t do anything for charity.  That’s very sad.  Hopefully they will decide to!
It must be a great way for a company to get profile, sponsoring an event.
Yes, but some of them don’t think of that.
What about the average punters?
They are wonderful.  They want to know exactly where the money is going, they support us strongly because they know that the money goes directly into the charity, we don’t have overheads and that does make a difference.  The administration costs of some of the charities are huge.
It is quite time consuming because a lot of the admin I do on my own.  I don’t pay myself a salary.  And even the office doesn’t cost much.
Are the heads of the charities in this country usually volunteers?
Yes.  Norma wouldn’t get paid, but the staff and even organisers do get paid.  When I started, I felt that I was in a lucky situation
You are fairly comfortable off?
Yes, I could afford it.  In most cases, you will find that the heads of the charities are in that situation.
Rich, connected….
Yes they are usually people who want to put something back into society.  And most of them have a reason.  I’ve explained my reason and Norma would have hers, they all do.
Does it give you something back?
Satisfaction.  Without a doubt.  When you get the letters from parents, that makes it all worthwhile.  One of the objectives of the charity was to ensure that when a child has to heave their home, for care that they should go to someplace just as nice or better.  If the parents are going away, that the kids should be in a place that’s like being on holiday for them.  We wanted everyone to be happy.  And we don’t want the parents to feel guilty, it’s depressing enough as it is.
But it takes over your whole life, when an event is happening.  But we will start looking for sponsors in February.
Is it easier for you, being connected?
Well, I still have competition from people who are better connected!
Do you help each other?
Well there is talk of us getting together, because last year, there were so many balls on at the same time, and we were appealing to the same sort of people.  So we are planning to space them out a bit more.
Do some people in this country have the time and the money and the wardrobe to be able to go to a ball every week, if they want to?
Yes.  But most people at that level will choose two or three functions to attend.  You have to do it so well that people say wow!
Do people come away thinking about the event or thinking about the charity?  And do you get people who go along and don’t even know what it’s for?
Most people, 40%, would have an awareness of the charity, 10% would just be there for the party and the rest would be there to learn about it.  90% wouldn’t go if they didn’t think it was a worthwhile charity.  But everybody seems to know somebody who has somebody in the family who’s mentally handicapped.  And we’ve delivered and we are up and running which is no mean feat.  So people know it’s worthwhile.
I hate the speeches.
This year, we’ve decided not to have speeches!  All they have to do is read the brochure.
What makes people decide to give money?
I think the Irish are probably the most generous nation in the world.  We’ve been putting money in the plates in church for years.  And this is pulling at the heart strings.
But there are so many charities, so many disasters.  Why you?
I would say more than likely because of the personal connection.  Concern and Goal raise phenomenal amounts, though, without entertainment.  What we are doing is very small in comparison.  And I don’t think we could get bigger without government support.  The goal would be to have five homes open around the country in the next ten years.
You don’t strike me as a society lady type who’s in it for the glamour.
No. laughs.  No, no no no no.  Definitely wouldn’t be.
Is all of that a myth, or does it exist?
Without a doubt, if I go to a function, a photographer will usually come up to me and take a photograph.  But as regards living it up with the elite, no I’m not really part of that scene.
Is there a scene?  Because I haven’t yet come across anybody who will admit to doing that.
And I’m sure they wouldn’t say it on tape, either!  I think there is a social scene, though, a bit like in New York.
A different dress for every event?
Oh, without a doubt.
 

Jackie Rafter, Bubblegum.

You’ve got to keep auctions to a minimum of items, or people lose interest.
At some of things you would actually pay them to stop, wouldn’t you?
Exactly.  The whole thing about it is, that’s where you make your money, though.
Is the charity fundraising world competitive?
No.  I was in school with Clodagh and Caroline Downey is a friend and I know Norma, Deirdre Kelly I know, I go to the Angel Ball, she comes to my things.  We all support each other.
It is usually people with a lot of money to spare, who get involved.
Yes.  And I have no money!  But if I ever won the lottery, I would run the Bubblegum club, I absolutely love it.  I’m getting my daughter and my son involved as well, because I think it’s important for children these days to see how the other half lives! 
Do you lunch in town, at posh places and go to Brown Thomas?
No.  My friends do, and I tag along with them!  I have the best girlfriends, they really are great.  I do get to live the good life, but only because my family and friends look after me.  My picture is in the paper a lot because I go to the launches, but that’s all to do with the charity.  It’s very important that I get to meet people and make contacts and the charity always needs publicity.  I meet people all the time who say they would love to help the charity, so I make an effort, when I go out.
It pays to get glammed up?
I don’t know!  But it’s good to get out.  And I have fun, I’m lucky.  I love the work I do.
Eamonn Dunphy helped a great deal by talking about it on the radio.  He just mentioned it three times and got a wonderful response.  A hundred and fifty calls.  Thank God for mobile phones, because people were obviously listening in their cars on the way home from work.
Mobile phones and credit cards!

Caroline Downey, Childline.
We meet in the green room at the Point.
How much will you make?
About 200,000 euros.
And where will it go?
It funds Childline.  Which is a free phone number which you can call, to talk about absolutely anything, from sexual abuse to bulimia, to problems with exams.  It’s like the Samaritans for children.  And after the Childline concert, the phone calls treble, because the number constantly comes up on the screen, during the show.  We want kids to phone about any problems they have, however big or small.  My sister’s being mean to me, whatever.  We don’t want there to be any stigma attached to calling Childline. 
And it’s anonymous?
Yes.  At no point, unless the child wants to give their name, do they have to.  A lot of people worry that you should only phone for very serious problems.  But when you are a kid, having a row with your best friend can be a major thing in your life. 
How old do you have to be, to use the service?
Any age.
Can adults call?
Yes, you would get parents calling as well.  But it’s really important that it’s there for kids and we have children on the board, who tell us what’s wrong with the service and how it can be improved.
How many kids are using it, every year?
Penny will tell you.  I don’t answer the phones, I can’t.  I consider myself to be quite a strong person, but I would want to jump in the car and go and rescue the kid and you can’t do that.  MY ability is fundraising, but there are people who sleep on cots, in the Childline office, so as to be able to answer the phones.  They never get any credit and they don’t get paid.  Counsellors, who are trained to do it.
If I wanted to do it, could I?
If you wanted to do it, you would go through an interview process and they would clear you first.  You would have to be vetted, you don’t want paedophiles answering the phones.  And then you have to be trained.
How did the concert start?
It was the tenth birthday and they came to me and said what can we do?  And Louis Walsh, who’s a friend of mine, said that Boyzone would do something for us.