Posts By: Kaye Wiggins

The ideology behind changes to National Lottery funding is sound but the logic isn’t

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport confirmed yesterday what the sector has been expecting for a while: the Big Lottery Fund’s share of National Lottery good cause money will be cut from 50 per cent to 40 per cent and arts, sports and heritage groups will increase their share to 60 per cent. The… Read more »

Charity websites are self-centred and confusing

In the past seven days, I have written two stories reporting that charity websites have been criticised as inaccessible and frustrating to use. The first was on a report by the agency Bluefrog claimed more than half of the UK’s 100 largest charities used hard-to-read design styles on the legacy giving sections of their sites…. Read more »

Should academics provide fundraisers with practical tips? I don’t think so

Third Sector columnist Cathy Pharoah reignited an old debate when she told a Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy conference last week that there was a gulf between how fundraisers and academics think about philanthropy. Pharoah is co-director of the centre, which is part of Cass Business School. 
Lindsay Boswell, chief executive of the Institute… Read more »

The time is right for charities to shock again

The headline finding for the voluntary sector in the latest annual report of the Advertising Standards Authority is that the number of complaints about non-commercial organisations more than doubled last year. The figure had already increased by 150 per cent in 2008, from its 2007 level. But this year’s list of the top 10 most-complained-about… Read more »

Nick Hurd claimed to be serious at his first meet-and-greet, but mutterings were audible

Earlier this week I went to the first meet-and-greet by Nick Hurd with the sector since his appointment as the new charities minister. It wasn’t exactly at the coalface: it was a small gathering of around 50 senior charity staff at a smart central London hotel. But it was a good debut for Hurd. He charmed… Read more »

What the sacked chugger told me

Last week I interviewed the face-to-face fundraiser who was dismissed by development charity EveryChild after he left a folder containing donors’ direct debit details on a street in Norwich city centre.  The incident sparked an investigation by the Information Commissioner’s Office, which enforces the Data Protection Act.  But when we met, he had a bigger… Read more »

Cameron pushed his big society, but his charity audience was not convinced

Yesterday I watched David Cameron give a speech about his big society agenda at a meeting hosted by think tank the Centre for Social Justice. 
 
 Previous announcements by the Conservatives about the idea have been relatively well-received by much of the national press, so I was interested to see how an audience that consisted… Read more »

David Cameron’s National Citizen Service is likely to interest only middle class and motivated teens

Volunteering was at the top of the political agenda for a brief moment yesterday, when David Cameron used his first major press conference since the beginning of the general election campaign to announce his party’s plans for a National Citizen Service scheme. Under his system, 16-year-olds would be encouraged to spend the summer after they leave… Read more »

MP ‘sees nothing but a fudge’ on phasing out of cheques

If charities thought cheques being phased out by 2018 was a foregone conclusion, they might have to think again. The Payments Council proposed the move last year and has been consulting charities and sector umbrella bodies, as well as small businesses and other groups. Many, including Citizen’s Advice and the Institute of Fundraising, had come… Read more »

Smith, Hurd and Willott were given an easy ride at the volunteering hustings

At university we had hustings to help students decide which of their peers they should elect to represent them on their college’s governing body.  They were heated events. We crammed a hundred or so people into a small room, gave the candidates a good grilling and scrutinised every word they said, throwing back difficult questions… Read more »