Monthly Archives: January 2012

I am finding marathon training easier than fundraising

I have never presumed that the job I write about every day is an easy one to do. But I don’t think that until this year, as I struggle to raise sponsorship for running the London Marathon 2012, I fully appreciated just how hard it must be. I have sat at many fundraising conferences over… Read more »

Who is doing all this discriminating?

Last week, this site featured research by Rowena Lewis into the “reinforced glass ceiling” in the voluntary sector, which suggests women are still under-represented at chief executive level – only 46 per cent, out of a workforce of 68 per cent women. Lewis proposes two main reasons why women are under-represented: the motherhood penalty, and… Read more »

My battle with the Charity Commission

Last September, Third Sector reported how Southwark Council had been forced to write off almost £70,000 awarded to a defunct drug and alcohol charity. I was struck not only by the council’s lax checking procedures but by the fact that the federation had remained on the Charity Commission register until 2010, some eight years after… Read more »

‘Compulsory volunteering’ for those on benefits

Two weeks ago, government sources announced, in stories in the Sun and the Daily Mail, the expansion of a scheme that forces unemployed people to do compulsory community work or lose their benefits, if the staff at the Jobcentre decide that they’re not pulling their weight. The stories quote an unnamed government source, who says… Read more »

Where are all the interesting volunteering roles?

As the New Year rolled in, I did my usual routine of trying to come up with some resolutions, only this year I was determined to think of some I might actually keep. I discarded the usual ‘eat less cake’ and ‘exercise more’ and looked instead towards ‘volunteer’.

Why I’m shifting my donations this year

Two stories struck me over the Christmas and New Year break: the first was the news that Save the Children had raised more than £7m in its East Africa Appeal – a record for the charity; the second was the new year message from the Archbishop of Canterbury that we should not give up on… Read more »