# How donating one hour's salary can make a difference

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2003/08/27/how-donating-one-hour039s-salary-can-make-difference/
- Published: 2003-08-27T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

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.

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Using average hourly wages taken the latest figures from the Office of National 
Statistics, World Vision reports that:

 * 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.