Clothing collections for charity

Residents may have received plastic bags through their doors recently with requests for donations of clothing.

Before donating clothing in this way, it is always best to check out the companies involved. Whilst they may not be acting illegally, many are profit-making businesses which donate a very small proportion of their profits to charity, and if this charity is based in a foreign country, there is no knowing what may happen to any money they receive.

You can also check these out very easily by typing the names of any or all of the companies named on the bag into Google or another search engine, making sure that any links you follow up are not to the websites of those companies themselves.

It is usually best to deal with a registered charity based in the UK, as your donations have a much better chance of being used for the purposes stated.

For more information, see such websites as
www.joswinson.org.uk/pages/boguscharities.html
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3430119.stm
www.charity-commission.gov.uk/news/bogus.asp