I haven't ignored it CEdwards, I just don't know about other missing kids prior to Madeleine. I have no idea whatsoever whether or not people sent money to Kerry or to the parents of the Soham victims whilst they were missing. It's possible, though I agree there has been a recent-ish cultural shift in which many members of the public like to get involved in sad news stories like these by sending money in the hopes that it will do some good, perhaps inspired by things like Comic Relief and Children In Need, maybe..
My question to you (which you failed to answer) was - what should the McCanns have done with the money that poured in in the early days before the fund was set up, any ideas?
Yeah. Charity. Then saying, "please don't send money, we are helping the police to find Madeleine and/or her abductor," rather than encouraging the great british public to dig deep for them. If, at a later date, they had issues with the police work, well then they could maybe have tried to elicit help.
I'd also, on a slightly tangential note, have liked them to admit their mistake in leaving the children alone repeatedly rather than give us the guff about "end of your garden" and "well within the bounds of reasonable parenting." Basically, "don't blame us that Madeleine went missing, how were we to know that she would be abducted if we left her alone in an unlocked apartment repeatedly and only checked every half hour or so" *
*note: only if Madeleine was abducted and only if they were checking every half hour of course. may contain nuts.