Posts By: Ian Griggs

#nomakeupselfie is social media at its best

I think it is fair to describe the #nomakeupselfie trend on Twitter as a phenomenon without precedent in the charity world. As of Tuesday this week, Cancer Research UK said it had received a total of £8m in donations from the public. That is £6m more than it said it had received when I first… Read more »

Is business rate relief worth the risk?

In the past fortnight, I have written two stories about charities that have come a cropper over unpaid business rates to local authorities. The stories go like this: charity leases premises in ‘hard-to-let’ area for peppercorn rent on flexible terms and then claims the mandatory 80 per cent discount on business rates from the local… Read more »

Is the purpose of CSR to protect a company’s bottom line?

I was lucky enough to attend the Business Charity Awards, organised by Third Sector, on Monday night at the Grosvenor House Hotel where the BBC news reader Huw Edwards amused us with gentle digs at the England rugby team. I was sat next to a very interesting woman who works in the field of corporate… Read more »

Please don’t tell me what day, week or month it is

I was recently invited to attend a seminar organised by CharityComms called “Connect With The Media”, where I was asked to be part of a panel of journalists answering questions from an audience made up of charity communications professionals. I started off by asking the delegates to define ‘news’. I felt this was a useful… Read more »