back to article Techie Crotty will put £1m in Bletchley museum's kitty ... if you do the same

The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC) at Bletchley Park has been promised its largest ever single donation of £1m, which it hopes to use on refurbishments. Donor Matt Crotty, a tech entrepreneur and trustee of the museum, has pledged the million-pound gift. The eggheads who run the joint now need to find matched funding to …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    Cheapskate

    I think that's a very cheap way to make a donation. Because let's not forget that this guy doesn't promise them 1 million perse, he only promised to go as far as 1 million when doubling whatever funds they can get their hands on.

    So how likely is it that TNMOC can lay their hands on a million? This seems like damage control to me.

    If that guy really wants to do something for this museum then he should simply donate an amount of money which they can then spend instead of using tricks like these.

    Still, maybe that's the plan all along; getting geeks a bit worked up so that they'll donate too in order to make sure that he'll have to go all the way with his one million pound.

    1. jai

      Re: Cheapskate

      well a single donation is only going to be news for a very short time, and it isn't going to encourage others to donate

      this way, as you say, it encourages more of us to put our hands in our pockets too in order to assure the museum gets £2mil to spend instead of just one.

    2. LazyLazyman

      Re: Cheapskate

      Not really. It's pretty standard with large donations and finding nowadays. Match funding is done because it encourages charities to go out and find other sources of funding and to maximize funding efforts and investments rather than just sitting around hoping for a large donation.

    3. TopOnePercent
      FAIL

      Re: Cheapskate

      If its so "cheap" then why don't you match his matching?

      FFS... Are the school holidays over yet?

  2. Vulch

    Is there a link

    To an online donation page for the matching funds that could be included in the article? http://www.tnmoc.org/support maybe?

  3. Stuart Van Onselen

    Don't stop me if I've made this asinine suggestion before, but...

    They should appeal to the Bürgermeister of Berlin for a major contribution. Because without Bletchley Park, there might not be a Berlin for him to be mayor of!

    Bletchley Park/Ultra probably didn't win WWII for the Allies, but it did shorten it. And if the war had dragged on a few months longer, Little Boy might well have hit Berlin instead of Hiroshima.

    Germany had been the prime target for The Bomb right from the inception of the Manhattan Project, and the only thing that saved it was that the Third Reich collapsed before the bomb was ready. Unfortunately for the Japanese, their leaders were a bit too stubborn to read the writing on the wall in time.

  4. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Don't forget to claim 'gift Aid'

    If you are one of the few UK residents who pays Income Tax that is... :)

    TNMOC is a charity.

    http://www.tnmoc.org/support/make-donation

    1. James Hughes 1

      Re: Don't forget to claim 'gift Aid'

      Hmm. Was at Arundel Castle the other day, if you wanted to do Gift Aid, they increased the entry price (About £5 for the family I think). But you did get something in the cafe (which we didn't want to do)

      Can someone explain how that is a good idea? Everywhere else just seems to take Gift Aid certs and keep the entry price the same.

      1. mordac

        Re: Don't forget to claim 'gift Aid'

        Because them's the rules for Gift Aid.

        http://www.museumsassociation.org/publications/12098 says: "Museums and others will only be able to claim Gift Aid on daily admission tickets if visitors give at least 10% more than the standard admission fee. (Museums will be able to claim Gift Aid on the whole amount, not just the 10%)."

        Other places dodge the rules by selling "annual membership" for the price of admission, you can visit as many times as you like during the course of the year. This isn't because they love people revisiting for free, they're banking on most visitors being tourists that will use their "annual membership" for precisely one visit.

        1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
          Windows

          Re: Don't forget to claim 'gift Aid'

          I have an Annual ticket at the moment for Beamish and Crich museums. At Beamish, having one certainly allows you to skip the queues. I saw many locals with their family tickets. They know that it is a cheap day out for them once they pay their one off admittance charges.

          I try to use gift aid as much as possible. It is even better now that I qualify for over '60's entries.

          Grumpy old tightfisted git icon ---->

  5. Cliff

    Wealthy person A, will you match-fund?

    OK, that seems reasonable...

    Wealthy person B, will you match-fund?

    OK, that seems reasonable...

    £2M overnight ;-)

    1. Don Jefe
      Happy

      Re: Wealthy person A, will you match-fund?

      Sometimes it does work that way and everyone involved is overjoyed! The general premise behind a "celebrity" campaign though is as an awareness campaign designed to encourage donations, especially new donations by people who approve either Crotty the person or previous Crotty philanthropy: "If he is behind this it must be worthwhile"!

      Once people donate to something they like they tend to continue to donate. That doesn't hold as true of things like disaster relief and refugee care, those are sympathy/guilt donations. But if you're into Bletchley Park or astronomy or whatever chances are you'll remain interested and keep giving.

  6. ansi.sys

    Easy to unlock the funding

    Get the Bletchley Park trust (their landlords) to charge a one-off £1m rent. Then, at the same time give a £1m donation.

    Simples.

This topic is closed for new posts.