Monthly Archives: September 2010

Ranking charities – interesting, but unrealistic.

By , Thursday, 30 September 2010, 1 Comment

I attended Martin Brookes’ RSA lecture last night, in which he called for someone – I’m not entirely sure who – to look into developing a ranking system for charities according to how much they benefit society. The idea is to inform people’s decisions on their charitable giving.

To me it was clearly a very interesting debate, but it can only really be taken seriously on an intellectual level.

The practical implications of putting such a list in place boggle the mind, and in my view render the whole idea unrealistic.

First of all – and I am in agreement with Stephen Bubb on this – who on earth would have the moral authority to put together such a list?

Secondly, the needs of our society and environment are so fluid that this list would need to be continually updated, almost on a daily basis, if it was ever going to reflect accurately which organisations are the most beneficial at any time.

And finally, where is the cut-off point for something like this?

If, for example, you decide that giving money to a charity which helps starving children is far more worthwhile than giving it to a donkey sanctuary, at what point is it all right to start giving a proportion of the available funds to the donkeys rather than the next starving child?

This is a question which I fear can only really have one answer: when there are no starving children left to help.

I would obviously love there to be no starving children in the world, but is it realistic that this is ever going to be the case? And is Brookes saying that every other slightly less worthy cause should be abandoned until it is?

I would never judge anyone who donates to charity. As Brookes himself pointed out in his speech last night, the number of people in our society who donate to charity is steadily falling.

To my mind any donation to a charity, however worthy or unworthy some may believe it is compared to another cause, is to be applauded, and it is just not a good idea to go down the dangerous path of finding flaws in it.

The good news is that there are many charities out there which do fight very obviously ‘worthy’ causes and are very successful in their fundraising. They are some of the biggest and most generously funded charities in our society.

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Ed: isn’t he our man?

By , Tuesday, 28 September 2010, Be the first to comment

Many people in the voluntary sector will feel a small glow of satisfaction at the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader, no matter what they think of his politics, the mode of his election or the fraternal ‘psychodrama’.

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Gift Aid reform proposals are expected. What will the outcome be?

By , Monday, 27 September 2010, Be the first to comment

Later this week, we’ll see the results of the sector’s two year efforts at Gift Aid reform – a set of proposals which will be given careful consideration by Justine Greening, economic secretary to the Treasury.

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Big society means big change ahead

By , Friday, 24 September 2010, 2 Comments

Lord Wei, the government’s big society guru, weighed in recently with a warning that some charities and social enterprises had become too bureaucratic because they received most of their funding from the state. “They have ended up becoming big charity, not big society,” he said.

This chimes with Conservative arguments in recent years about the “Tescoisation” of charities, and with the party’s often-stated preference for local, community-based organisations. This government does not much like larger charities that get state funding, many of which are contemplating the future with some trepidation.

Stephen Bubb, chief executive of Acevo, responded by arguing in his lecture last week that “big society requires big charity as well as local charity. Properly speaking, big society means new life being breathed into the state-charity partnership.” He urged the government not to forget that the partnership between the state and the third sector is rooted in our history, has enjoyed cross-party consensus and is crucial to the well-being of society.

As we await the public spending review, it’s hard to predict in any detail what’s going to happen. The government is committed, as was Labour, to making it easier for the sector to bid for public contracts on a level playing field. That’s good in its way, if it actually happens, but public contracts are likely to be fewer and smaller, producing a countervailing effect.

The Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, also told Third Sector recently that the government was keen to open up public services to new providers. But he emphasised that it was interested in “community-based solutions.” That doesn’t sound encouraging for the bigger voluntary organisations.

The most that can be said with certainty is that the state is going to shrink, and with it many parts of the sector that depend on the state.  And when such large cuts are made so fast, many babies will go out with the bathwater.

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Charities take MDGs from the summit to the streets and the tweets

By , Thursday, 23 September 2010, Be the first to comment

If it was not for the work of charities and select sections of the media, I worry that the UN Millennium Development Goals summit and its purpose would have passed many people by.

There has been some progress on the eight MDGs, but it is, at best, uneven and slow. For example, Eastern Asia has surpassed its target already for halving the proportion of people, between 1990 and 2015, whose income is less than $1 a day. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Asia it is lagging massively behind.

Many charities have watched development at the current summit with a scrupulous eye. Others have actively engaged with events in New York. In a refreshingly light-hearted approach to what is, unmistakably a depressing subject, Save the Children handed out chocolate bars at the summit with the words “World Leaders, Run don’t walk: stop children dying”. The organisation has provided hundreds of tweets per day on Twitter about the summit, ensuring its coverage and use of the #MDG hashtag has been relentless. With more than 95,000 followers, this is promotion on a global scale.

Maternal Death ClockAmnesty International also produced a startling contrast to the bright lights of capitalism in Times Square with its grimly entitled “maternal death clock“. Situated streets away from the UN summit, the giant digital clock counts the number of times a woman dies giving birth – 1 every 90 seconds – in direct reference to the fifth MDG, which is behind target in every region of the world.

Sarah Brown was a speaker at the summit. In an interview with The Guardian, she highlighted the work of the White Ribbon Alliance in promoting maternal death rate awareness. She said: “When I became global patron of the White Ribbon Alliance nearly three years ago, it was clear that even the most well-informed women in this country weren’t fully aware of the problem. But once they knew, they were quickly outraged – and wanted to help.”

And this is exactly where the work of charities comes in. While the MDG summit may seem remote and inaccessible to many, explaining it and promoting its purpose is vital to securing funds for charity groups and winning hearts. Surely it’s a case of leading by example? If people see that the governments of the developed world are sticking to their word, then the public will follow suit. However, without the lasting support of both, sadly, many of the MDGs look even less achievable than they do now, five years away from the target date.

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Big society: is the anti-red tape message getting through?

By , Wednesday, 22 September 2010, Be the first to comment

Is the government’s much-vaunted anti-red tape, common-sense message starting to filter through to the world of local authorities?

At a big society-themed fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat party conference this weekend, an employee of Wirral Borough Council cited an interesting example of the message reaching the grass roots.
 
She said a local community group had called to ask the council’s permission to erect a gazebo at a fundraising event it was holding. She admitted that she had groaned inwardly at the prospect of the health and safety checks she would have to arrange, and the forms she would have to fill out, in order to grant the permission.
 
But when she contacted another council department to make the arrangements, the response was surprising.
 
“Just let them get on with it and tell them to use a bit of common sense,” the official said, much to her approval.
 
Is Wirral a rare exception, or are councils around the country cutting red tape in response to the government’s big society agenda? And do charities welcome this, or are they worried that they’ll be the ones to blame for any accidents or mistakes that result from it?
 

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Voluntary groups show there’s power in numbers

By , Monday, 20 September 2010, 1 Comment

There was a sense of unity at the Protest the Pope march in London on Saturday, which is no mean feat considering there were around 10,000 individuals, many of them defined by different beliefs, lifestyles, religions and creeds.

I arrived by Tube, slightly concerned about getting myself arrested (never a good thing for a first week in a new job), and trying to avoid ‘death by pilgrims’ (the seemingly endless stream of Pope fans that stopped the traffic at Hyde Park Corner on their way to a mass in the park). The pilgrims, complete with yellow ‘pilgrim packs’ on their backs, walked with purpose, and I wondered how the anti-Pope protesters were going to measure up. We would likely lack the religious fervour and all-round excitement that had led some pilgrims to declare His Holiness ‘the true X Factor’.

My initial fears were confirmed… we were a motley crew loitering around the Tube station looking decidedly unsure and coy.

But not long after, some people who looked organised arrived – the voluntary groups. Unlike me, who had only remembered to bring my Oyster card, a packet of wine gums and a heart full of injustice, these groups had placards, banners and t-shirts, as well as the spirit needed to lift the mood.

Protest the PopeWithin minutes, congregations (excuse the pun) of voluntary groups, along with members of the public, had gathered. I saw the National Secular Society, Amnesty International, Women Against Fundamentalism, the British Humanist Association, Stonewall, Southall Black Sisters, Catholic Women’s Ordination, The Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, the International Humanist and Ethical Union and many, many more.

And within 20 minutes, the numbers were swelling all around the grand gates of Hyde Park. The small groups became crowds; the murmurs of misgivings about the Pope became chants on a megaphone; and all of a sudden, we had found our mojo.

When you are in a crowd that grows in size that quickly, it is almost impossible to gauge its size. However, there’s a feeling that sweeps through each individual; the magic of mass protest. It’s as if we were all cells that become connected by neurons of shared belief, transforming us into one powerful, functioning entity.

After a long wait, which only served to psych up the crowd further, we began the well-trodden route towards Trafalgar Square.

The human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell had told me in an email before the event that the reasons behind the march were varied: “Pope Benedict XVI says women are unfit to be priests, childless couples should be denied fertility treatment and potentially life-saving embryonic stem cell research ought to be banned.

“The Pope insists that rape victims should be denied an abortion, using condoms to stop the spread of HIV is immoral and gay people are not entitled to equal human rights. On all these issues, Benedict is out of step with the majority of British people, including many Catholics.

“Most shockingly, the Pope is accused of covering up child sex abuse by clergy. In 2001, he wrote to every Catholic bishop in the world, ordering them to report all child sex abuse cases to him in Rome. They did. He therefore cannot claim that he was unaware of sex abuse. Moreover, his letter to the bishops demanded that they observe ‘Papal secrecy.’

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Local authorities still failing to serve effectively as charity trustees

By , Friday, 17 September 2010, Be the first to comment

This week has brought another example of just how bad local authorities are at serving as trustees of charities.

In Shetland, island councillors have buried their heads firmly in the sand and refused to reform the board of a £200m charitable trust where they make up 21 of 23 trustees, despite being told to do so by islanders, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, their own lawyers, and one of the charity’s two independent trustees.

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‘Micro-volunteering’ highlights positive impact of technology on voluntary sector

By , Wednesday, 15 September 2010, 5 Comments

It’s easy to become jaded by the endless stream of technological advances we see practically every day.

But one piece of technology I recently became aware of that made me sit up and take notice is an app which allows people to donate just a few valuable minutes of their time to charities in a quick and convenient way.

The Extraordinaries http://app.beextra.org/ is a micro-volunteering network website where not-for-profit organisations can register and post challenges they need help with.

Individual volunteers can also register with the site and they then receive an app which allows them to browse the challenges on their phone and volunteer to help out with the projects which match their skills.

A quick internet search has yielded results of other apps out there doing similar things, such as iVolunteer.

However, the uniqueness of the Extraordinaries is that people can volunteer just a few minutes of their time to give their expertise towards a challenge a charity is facing. It’s know as ‘micro-volunteering’.

One charity was recently trying to find an inexpensive way of digging a well in Kenya, and through the network was connected with a US-managed but Kenyan-based well digging company within a week.  

The creator of the App, Jacob Colker, recently won a Rolex Award for Enterprise, which provides support for innovators ages 16-30, for the project.

It seems to be well-deserved recognition, as the app really highlights the hugely positive impact that technology can have on the sector during a difficult economic time.

It may be harder to secure monetary donations from people, but securing donations in the form of time are still more than possible, if you do it in an innovative way.

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Volunteers were the heroes of the London tube strike: London Zoo could do better

By , Wednesday, 8 September 2010, 4 Comments

I was very impressed by the work of volunteers during the tube strike in London yesterday.
 
I set off on my morning commute expecting chaos. But at both Victoria and Earl’s Court stations, there were plenty of cheery, easy-to-find, orange vest-clad Transport for London volunteers advising travellers how to reach their destinations.
 
I didn’t have to wait long to speak to one, and neither did the other commuters, none of whom seemed stressed. Perhaps the strike triggered good old-fashioned British stoicism. But the volunteers definitely played their part in keeping what could have been a reputational disaster for TFL under control. 
 
But volunteers don’t always work wonders for the reputations of companies and charities. A few weeks ago, I went to the London Zoo’s Zoo Lates event, at which hundreds of people spent the evening drinking Pimm’s, eating burgers and wandering around the animal enclosures – a brilliant fundraising event for the zoo.
 
As my friend and I strolled through the monkey enclosure, we noticed an over-zealous volunteer marshalling the crowds.
 
“Stand back from that tree!” she shouted at one couple. “It’s the monkey’s space!” Another group of visitors was told off for spending too long looking at some baby monkeys.
 
The response was interesting. “Ignore her,” one visitor said. “She’s only a volunteer and she’s getting hung up on her own power.”
 
The zoo volunteer was obviously not working the wonders for the zoo’s reputation that the Tube volunteers were working for TFL’s. My instinctive reaction was that it came down to volunteer management – shouldn’t organisations vet their volunteers properly before they let them speak directly to the public on their behalf?
 
But perhaps that would undermine the point of volunteering. Volunteers aren’t one-size-fits-all and they can’t be vetted and controlled in the way paid staff can. They enjoy making their own mark, and if they weren’t enjoying it they wouldn’t do it.
 
So perhaps charities – and other organisations that use volunteers – need to accept that alongside a reputational bonus, hiring volunteers involves a big reputational risk.

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