I like to give money to charities. There are a lot of things I can't do as a volunteer, by dint of my age and other restrictions, but I can pay regular sums to a range of charitable organisations. I like to spread it out across a range of needs and so have a dozen or so places that get a small boost from me. I have worked it out so that if I give to a different cause weekly, then everyone gets something every three months or so.

It's not that I have a lot to spare but there is always room to give and its good for your wellbeing as well as for someone else, someone you have never met before. Government can't take care of everything - in fact it's not especially good at helping the poor - so charities of various stripes are important in taking up that role. They provide a far more personal face.

If I have a gripe about the 'system', the way charities request and collect money, its that they often seem tone deaf to the capacity of those already giving. Phone calls, mailouts, shopping kiosk salespeople and the like are unrelenting in trying to squeeze another drop out of people already pulling their weight. It is morally questionable, never mind the need.

I know of at least one person who stopped giving altogether because of the constant harassment to give more. That won't happen to me - I have become very firm with my boundaries - but I can understand the impulse.

Charities! - never mind what marketing tells you, get off the backs of the givers and find ways to reach those, who, with a little gentle persuasion and a ton of guilt, might find a way to be generous themselves.