How donating one hour's salary can make a difference
Howard Lake | 27 August 2003 | News
World Vision’s calculations show that one hour of anyone’s salary donated to them can make a big difference.
International relief and development charity World Vision has worked out what people could buy with an hour of their wages, in an attempt to show that even the lowest paid workers can make a difference to people around the world.
Using average hourly wages taken the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics, World Vision reports that:
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- A number of cleaners and bar staff are paid the minimum wage in the UK, which currently stands at £4.20 for people aged over 22, rising to £4.50 this October. This is more than you need a week to sponsor a
child in countries such as Zambia or India – which costs £4 a week. This amount is also enough to provide a mosquito net for a family in Rwanda to prevent them contracting malaria – which kills two million people
every year. - Checkout staff earn about £5.00 an hour. This is enough to buy two fruit trees for a family in Vietnam. The trees would give families a regular crop of food to improve their health. Families could also sell
fruit to make earn a little money. - A hairdresser making £5.80 an hour can also help. If they donated six hours wages they could provide new coats, boots, jumpers and gloves to three children in Bosnia where youngsters have to walk though blizzards to get to school in winter.
- Receptionists earn an average of £6.50 which is just over a third of the total amount of money needed to pay for a school kit (including pens, pencils, bags, books and uniform) for a child in Asia (which costs £17).
- Taxi drivers make about £6.80 an hour, enough to buy three chickens for a family in Uganda or Honduras who can eat and sell the
eggs produced by the chickens. - Senior nurses who receive £12.25 an hour could donate an hour of their wage to train four health visitors in Ethiopia.
- Pub managers make an average of £8.39 – for two hours of their time they could immunise a child against six killer diseases
(diphtheria, whopping cough, measles, polio, tetanus and tuberculosis). - A shop manager earning just over £11 donating three hours of their wage would be able to buy an emergency survival pack for a family left homeless after a flood or earthquake. Or, a harvest pack which would give a family seeds and tools to feed them for a year.
- A newly qualified secondary school teacher making £15 an hour could donate two hours of their wage and buy a piglet for a family in Asia. With five hours of their wage they could donate a sow. The money
made by parents from rearing pigs enables them to send their youngsters to school. - A sales manager making £24 an hour could pay for a year of school lunches for a child in Armenia or pay for three cement water
wells in Asia with four hours wages.
The charity also takes an example from the other end of the payscale. David Beckham’s weekly wage at Real Madrid is reportedly anything between £100,000 and £120,000. This would pay for the operating
costs for a medical boat for 3 years on the Amazon, 10 water boreholes in Zimbabwe and an ox and cart for four farmers in Mozambique.
These examples are not relevant to all charities of course, but they can easily be adapted to show your supporters what a relatively small donation from them can achieve.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.