Street fundraising has been having a bit of a moment in the mainstream media. A Sunday Telegraph journalist went undercover and exposed evidence of potential breaches of chugging rules by a fundraising agency. More recently, Lord Hodgson’s review of the Charity Act and recommendations on fundraising led to more headlines screaming for a ‘crackdown on… Read more »
Monthly Archives: July 2012
Withdrawing Gift Aid for late filing of accounts makes no sense
Lord Hodgson’s proposal that it should be easier for charities to pay trustees has drawn the most ire from the sector, but his proposal that Gift Aid be withdrawn from charities that file their accounts late is perhaps the one that seems to make the least practical sense. First of all, Gift Aid is of… Read more »
Give independent schools their own register
Stephen Twigg, the shadow education secretary, has dared to raise the issue of removing the charitable status of independent schools. Like many a Labour MP before him, it rankles with him that fee-paying schools benefit from the many perks of charitable status yet many appear to be failing to fulfil their charitable objectives.
Paying trustees won’t lead to better results
There’s a story, much-used among producers of Freakonomics-style literature, about a nursery in Israel that got fed up with parents arriving late to collect their children, and started charging latecomers. What happened? People got even later. Previously, it seems, they had felt guilty about arriving late, because they felt a social obligation to the people… Read more »
Despite the downturn, fundraisers remained positive at this year’s convention
Fundraisers must be a resilient bunch to cope with all the knock-backs that come with the job. But according to our Charity Pulse survey, which asks charity workers how they’re feeling about their jobs, fundraisers are suffering from low morale. With the economic downturn continuing to make people less willing to part with their hard-earned… Read more »
The changing definition of ‘mutuals’
In the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen some movement on the government’s mutuals agenda – the idea, championed by the Cabinet Office, that public services should be spun out into employee-controlled social enterprises which, it says, will be much more efficient at delivering services than the lumbering giants in the state. One announcement, at… Read more »