Monthly Archives: June 2011

Could merger problems be eased by matchmaking?

Our coverage of RNIB and Guide Dogs failing to find a common path this week and last leads back to an age-old question: why aren’t there more mergers in the charity sector? In our analysis on the subject, Richard Gutch and Craig Dearden-Phillips both said that basically, for mergers to go ahead, charities need two… Read more »

Why is the charity sector being outdone by private businesses?

This week, we’ve published an analysis of welfare-to-work provision. This is historically an area where charities have ended up as subcontractors to private providers. Many feel the sector gets stiffed by this process. Looking at the ages of those private providers, though, it seems the sector may have missed a trick somewhere along the way,… Read more »

Fundraising and finance: the oddly successful couple

A while ago, I interviewed a finance director who claimed she could tell which department of a charity she was in, just by looking in the fridge. Go into the finance department in her organisation, she said, and the fridge was full of sensible sandwiches: ham and cheese on plain brown bread. The fundraising department… Read more »

Sir Ronald Cohen’s uphill struggle with the MPs

Last week, Sir Ronald Cohen, the creator of the Big Society Bank and one of this country’s richest men, spent an hour and a half explaining to a committee of Parliamentarians all the ramifications of the bank and of social impact bonds (which he also had a hand in – his consultancy, Social Finance dreamt… Read more »

MP Chris Chope’s bill for volunteers shows how difficult reforms of CRB checks will be

Conservative MP Chris Chope has tabled a private member’s bill that he thinks will solve the problem of potential volunteers being deterred by the prospect of waiting for a criminal records check. The answer, he says, is simple: we should ask volunteers to sign a “fit and proper person certificate” saying they have no criminal… Read more »

Valuing unsold charity shop stock won’t work

“Strategies are okayed in boardrooms that even a child would say are bound to fail. The problem is there is never a child in the boardroom” Victor Palmieri, American corporate turnaround specialist   A while ago an article on this site by Ray Jones of the Charity Commission observed that sometimes, in the pursuit of… Read more »