Two stories I have worked on this year have generated considerable feeling. One is the merger of Age Concern and Help the Aged into Age UK and its subsequent attempts to persuade local Age Concerns to become ‘brand partners’. The other is the decision by the Alzheimer’s Society to merge local branches into a new regional structure…. Read more »
Monthly Archives: August 2010
Was the Charity Commission right not to publicise the findings of its investigation into the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative?
The long-awaited verdicts from the Charity Commission on the last two of the charities it investigated over political activity during the pre-election period are out. Both the employment charity Tomorrow’s People, which was probed over the appearance of its chief executive in the Conservative Party’s election manifesto, and the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative, which… Read more »
We need to clearly define the meaning of social enterprise
On Friday, I read a short piece by Laurence Demarco, founder of Senscot, the network for social entrepreneurs in Scotland. Demarco – a popular figure in Scottish social enterprise who should probably be better known south of the border – is worried that the government seems determined to widen the definition of social enterprise to… Read more »
The clothes collection scammers have a new tactic
They have strange, fragmented names, such as Hope For Ever or Light And Love. They often claim to be raising cash for orphans in Eastern Europe. The bags and leaflets have weird fluorescent lettering and cheap print that rubs off on your fingers. And there’s always a charity number that can be duly checked and… Read more »
This carrot and stick approach to jobseeker volunteering is confusing for everyone
One of the more surprising details to emerge from the story by Third Sector about Calder UK, the firm that has agreed to pay volunteer centres for using their services as part of its welfare-to-work programme, was its method of finding volunteer placements for jobseekers. The Department for Work and Pensions had made it compulsory… Read more »