Sunday Mirror

Should celebs be paid for charity work?

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IN an ideal world, would every celebrity donate their fee for a charity campaign to charity? Yes they would.

But often celebritie­s won’t do something without getting paid because it takes a lot of their time and energy.

And if I were Peter Andre and a company approached me and said they will give me money to busk on the streets for charity, I’d say: “Yes, sure”.

It’s probably all negotiated through his agent anyway.

But we also must remember that a lot of these charity BY JOE SAXTON, FOUNDER OF CONSULTANC­Y NFPSYNERGY

campaigns that involve celebritie­s are not just good for the charity, they are also very good for the celebrity because it can raise their profile.

Take Live Aid, for example. Please don’t tell me that the celebritie­s who took part in that were being completely altruistic by being seen on live TV raising money for charity for free because they were also doing very well out of it themselves. PERSONALLY I’d never take a fee to do charity work and most celebritie­s I know wouldn’t either.

You do it because you want to help that charity. If you are a really high profile celebrity who earns a lot of money, even asking for expenses doesn’t seem right.

However, in my position, where I don’t have a lot of money, I can’t afford to do anything that will put me out of pocket.

That’s why I will be returning to pantomime this Christmas, as the Wicked Queen in Snow White! Earlier this year I was BY ANNE NOLAN, SINGER AND TV PRESENTER

In 2015 it emerged Made In Chelsea star Alexandra “Binky” Felstead was paid £3,000 to front a campaign for kids’ charity Barnardo’s. She later made it clear she was yet to be paid and asked the charity to keep the money.

In a video released two weeks after the event, Andre said: “By doing a secret gig on the streets like this and using mobile payments to make it quick and easy for people to donate, we managed to raise hundreds of pounds from people’s kind donations in a matter of minutes.”

Last night his representa­tives tried to play down his payment for the homeless charity event. They said he had given to Shelter and “he supports six or seven chosen charities and does everything for them free of charge every year.”

They added: “It’s a shame that a paper doesn’t pick up on any of the things he does completely free and gives so much time to helping people.”

Nationwide said: “As part of our wider promotion of Samsung Pay, the latest smartphone payment service, we demonstrat­ed how customers could transact using their handsets rather than cash.

“Research we conducted showed that people would give twice as much to charity if they used mobile payments.

“We teamed up with Peter Andre as a spokespers­on for this campaign.”

Shelter said it paid no money to the star and was grateful for the donation.

asked to attend a charity event in Torquay, which I would have been delighted to do, but I couldn’t afford the expenses and had to tell them I couldn’t do it.

They came back and said they’d pay for my travel and hotel, but that didn’t feel right to me, as I would have been taking money out of the charity.

So I suggested they find a local celebrity and that’s what they did.

I bet it made you feel good, helping those who are less fortunate than you MARGARET APAP FAN WHO MESSAGED PETER ANDRE

 ??  ?? Andre keeping it real by singing at a pop-up performanc­e in North London
Andre keeping it real by singing at a pop-up performanc­e in North London
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