The Lemon Fool

Does anyone have a view on the best way to provide financial support Ukrainian refuges in the current crisis ?
The BBC have mentioned a few options https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60562260 without giving much detail
The Salvation Army has also been mentioned but I know little about their overseas operations.

My usual route for channelling charitable donation on such occasions (Disasters emergency Committee ) seems to be prevaricating at the moment for some reason but have also provided a list of active organisations.

https://www.dec.org.uk/article/ukraine-crisis

The fundraising page of the London embassy is https://withukraine.org/

Their official webpage is uk.mfa.gov.ua/en but it times out so you're probably better off on their Facebook & Twitter for updates :

https://www.facebook.com/ukraine.in.uk/
https://twitter.com/ukremblondon

Boris just announced UK govt will match all contributions given via their direct appeal. Not exactly sure where these donations should go yet. Anyone?

Gryff

Hallucigenia wrote:The fundraising page of the London embassy is https://withukraine.org/

Is is? Not accusing you of anything, but this one rings a lot of alarm bells to me. Anyone can setup a .org. “Please transfer direct to our bank account, don’t worry about the warnings.”. Can you provide any reliable outward link to this page? It looks very sus.

Edit. Aha. It is now linked from their Facebook page. Wasn’t yesterday. Alarm cancelled.

Gryff

gryffron wrote:Boris just announced UK govt will match all contributions given via their direct appeal. Not exactly sure where these donations should go yet. Anyone?

Gryff

It seems to be the new DEC appeal, which explains why their website was not responding when I tried it a few minutes ago.

gryffron wrote:

Hallucigenia wrote:The fundraising page of the London embassy is https://withukraine.org/

Is is? This one rings a lot of alarm bells to me. Anyone can setup a .org. “Please transfer direct to our bank account, don’t worry about the warnings.”. Can you provide any reliable outward link to this page? It looks very sus.

Their Twitter account above is blue-ticked, which links to the above Facebook page, which has the link to the .org

But as I say, there's now an official DEC appeal at https://www.dec.org.uk/appeal/ukraine-h ... ian-appeal which is the one that taxpayers are matching.

Hallucigenia wrote:
But as I say, there's now an official DEC appeal at https://www.dec.org.uk/appeal/ukraine-h ... ian-appeal which is the one that taxpayers are matching.

That's what I was hoping to find, Gift-Aidable donations as well.

The Independent has an article on How to help and support the people of Ukraine which includes:

"Come Back Alive is a Kyiv-based charity that fundraises for Ukraine’s military, in order to ensure soldiers and volunteers have enough supplies to fight back against Russia.

These supplies include auxiliary equipment, specialised software, drones, personal body protection, and training.

The charity’s website provides instructions on how to donate from abroad, which can be found here.

Army SOS also uses donated funds to help purchase supplies for the Ukrainian military, including ammunition, shields and food. Instructions on how to donate can be found here."

Yesterday I sent a donation to the Ukraine Red Cross https://donate.redcrossredcrescent.org/ua/donate/~my-donation?_cv=1

V8

Shame they don't accept sterling

Ukrainian Institute, London
Lots of information here including monetary and physical donation info. Regularly updated:

https://ukrainianinstitute.org.uk/russi ... krainians/

Red Cross

https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/u ... sis-appeal

National Bank of Ukraine - Military Donations
Accept sterling transfers via IBAN (London based bank) - go down page to bank information

https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsion ... ebi-armiyi

National Bank of Ukraine - Humanitarian Donations
Accept sterling transfers via IBAN (London based bank) - go down page

https://bank.gov.ua/en/news/all/natsion ... i-agresiyi

pje16 wrote:Shame they don't accept sterling

Your credit card co will convert the $ into £... they have the technology...

V8

I know they will
I'd rather pay in sterling and not lose on exchange rate/commission
I would have thought they would have more currencies available
I won't be the only one put off

pje16 wrote:I know they will
I'd rather pay in sterling and not lose on exchange rate/commission
I would have thought they would have more currencies available
I won't be the only one put off

Consider paying via British Red Cross -they accept sterling and are associated with Ukrainian Red Cross.

Details here (payment and association)

https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/u ... sis-appeal

ok many thanks
and will do
cheers

Have done
edit to change tense

another edit
Better for people in the UKL to use that link as they can claim Gift-aid from tax payers
https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/u ... sis-appeal

RockRabbit wrote:

pje16 wrote:I know they will
I'd rather pay in sterling and not lose on exchange rate/commission
I would have thought they would have more currencies available
I won't be the only one put off

Consider paying via British Red Cross -they accept sterling and are associated with Ukrainian Red Cross.

Details here (payment and association)

https://donate.redcross.org.uk/appeal/u ... sis-appeal

I agree with that suggestion and i am about to donate to the British Red Cross. It is also one of the major UK charities that has not been tainted in recent years.

Dod

I did mine via the Dec. appeal. Very quick and easy and I was able to print out a copy of the receipt for tax purposes. I donated my Premium Bond prize money for this month.

I know that this is a specific issue.

However can I suggest that you all consider a regular donation to any of the charities supporting the central body. I donate monthly to the Red cross and for very many years been really happy about how quickly they swing in to provide support.

They, and others, can only do so because they are not starting from scratch. They need money that isn't spent on the disaster today, to enable them to respond to the disaster tomorrow. NO I'm not talking money in the bank to respond. I'm talking manpower resources like people there or nearby. Banking covenants, Managers, yes we feel that paying them to do nothing is a waste, but where do you get one when you need one.

As I said, the Red Cross is my choice, but there are many others to choose from. Please consider a regular donation to enable your charity to respond, when you want to provide more. No matter how small, the regular donation really helps charities that respond to infrequent events.

It may be a small thing, but I feel really happy that, when I hear on the news of the Red Cross providing support, that in some small way, I have helped.
--------
Re money or £'s. Well I hope much of it will be spent as Zloty, Leu, or Euro's. Some exchange fees will have to be paid. I'm not sure that funds sent to the Ukraine directly will achieve much.

Though the press may be glossing over who pays for Ukrainian weapons. It may be that paying FX fees is needed to help with that aspect, if they are not receiving gifts of material but being sold it. As we were charged in WWII. Debt fully paid in 1992.
While a fan of Bitcoin, I question the need to use it in this case. It adds extra fees and complication without mitigating other factors.

Urbandreamer wrote:I know that this is a specific issue.

However can I suggest that you all consider a regular donation to any of the charities supporting the central body. I donate monthly to the Red cross and for very many years been really happy about how quickly they swing in to provide support.

My preference is to give to narrow, specific charities (like MS) rather than the big generalist ones.

Historically that has meant local charities that benefit my immediate neighbourhood. But more recently I have favoured foreign charities, albeit still narrowly focused ones.

So I have supported an Israeli charity, and now will target a Ukrainian one.

pje16 wrote:I'd rather pay in sterling and not lose on exchange rate/commission
I would have thought they would have more currencies available
I won't be the only one put off

The thing is the money has to be converted at some stage, the exchange rate you get on a credit card is not significantly different than if you donate to a UK charity in £ who then group the money together, exchange it and forward onto contacts in Ukraine.
By accepting payments in $ and € (major currencies) they at least guarantee you are likely to get a good exchange rate.

If you walk into a supermarket and buy a bag of potatoes, less than half the money you pay will go to the farmer who grew them, but thats life there are always overhead costs.