So this foundation has charitable status? What are the causes that the foundation will be raising money for? I'd like to know more about this 'charity' shopping channel.
I would also like to know what proportion of the telephone calls and profit from the p&p goes towards the foundation.
Are the presenters, staff and studio rental and warehouse costs being given free as well?
Every penny profit goes to charity.
http://www.equalworld.com/our-work/
I'm struggling to see why £1.02 per phone call is an "insult" too. It's an option to shop with them. Nobody is obliged to. Nobody forces them too. It's a charity channel. It'll be very obvious to people that it's a charity channel. They'll know that they're contributing to a charity if they phone the channel. If people feel insulted giving to a charity, then they simply shouldn't buy from this channel. It's not for them.
As its partly run by Steve Bennett, and been mentioned a lot on Gems TV, I suspect a lot of viewers of this channel will be Gems TV customers - so, to put things in perspective, those customers were happy to donate money back in January - and got nothing for their money. Some of them donated hundreds of pounds. They got nothing in return - other than a mention on the screen and the pleasure in knowing that they helped the company raise, off the top of my head, something like £80,000 to help build some schools in Tanzania.
Now, those same people can still donate money - but in the process, be in with a chance of getting something back in return for their money. What can posisbly be bad about that? People that would have donated anyway are in with a chance of getting something for their money. The companies that donate the charity items get a bit of free advertising in return for donating something to sell, and Steve Bennett and his Equal World Foundation make money for a charity that they've been doing for a long time anyway. Surely it's a win-win for everyone?
Rather than putting a pound in a pot outside a supermarket and getting a poppy, daffodil or a sticker, people are "donating" £1 and making a bid for an item that would be expensive usually - but in with a chance of getting it cheap if they win.
It's run partly by Steve Bennett - the guy that runs Gems. The guy that has local call rates on all of his other channels - unlike Bid/Price Drop who clearly made money from calls. If Steve Bennett wanted to rip people off, then he could charge £1 per call on his other channels too - but he doesn't. He's one of the very few that is prepared to take a hit on call charges and packaging costs.
It's a shame that people have to be negative about a charity channel.
Are the presenters, staff and studio rental and warehouse costs being given free as well?
The studio is probably housed within Steve Bennett's current set up within the Gems building - so I doubt that there's any further costs involved. The girl that did the clip above also works for Steve Bennett - so they'll already be on his payroll. Although they're on TV for 4 hours, they often work "behind the scenes" before and after their shows - so chances are, this is costing nothing extra either. Some staff could be doing so voluntarily anyway.
For example, one of Gems' cameramen broke a glass cabinet in the Gems TV museum a few days ago. Steve jokingly said on air that he should have been annoyed with the member of staff - but said he admired him because they had been a cameraman short, this guy had offered to step in as overtime for two days - but then donated those two days of his wages to Steve's charity. Many of Gems' staff have given their time and money voluntarily to this charity before - such as during the charity bike ride earlier this year. All of the presenters and staff took turns on the bike, outside of their working hours, to raise money for this charity (it was previously called The Colourful Life Foundation).
