Posts Categorized: Uncategorized

Getting to know the UK’s richest charity

The Lloyd’s Register Foundation arrived on the Charity Commission’s register two years ago like a super-tanker pulling into a port filled with ferries and sailing boats. Its income of £950m a year instantly made it made the largest charity in England and Wales, pushing the British Council into second place.

Time for charities to stop feeling like victims

In June, Charity Commission chair William Shawcross said that the charity sector was in a crisis after the outcry over fundraising that followed the death of Olive Cooke.

Full marks to Jeremy Hughes for speaking out

Like many in the sector, I was surprised and pleased by the response of Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Society, to The Sun’s story criticising pay at the charity last week. Instead of doing what so many charities do and burying his head in the sand the moment a negative news story emerged, Hughes… Read more »

Crowdsourcing charity law, and crowdfunding the commission

Every day, goes the hackneyed phrase, you learn something new. Yesterday was a particularly successful day: I learnt two new things, both from the Charity Commission-commissioned report Trust and Confidence in the Charity Commission. First, most of the 1,001 members of the public surveyed think that charities should at least partly fund the commission, and, second,… Read more »

Why the Tories should keep their volunteering pledge

It looks increasingly likely that the Conservatives will ditch their pre-election pledge to allow staff in larger companies and the public sector to take three days of paid volunteering leave.

Lessons from Evolve: think long term, hedge your bets and cross your fingers

I spent Monday at the National Council for Voluntary Organisation’s Evolve 2015 conference and subsequent dinner. Alongside hearing that fundraising self-regulation was “not working in its current form”  and that the Tories’ pledge to create a three-day volunteering leave requirement for larger companies “won’t be happening”, here are a few things that got me thinking:

Polite but pushy – my experience of making text donations

“Mummy, am I going to die?” As the mother of two small children it’s a particularly heart-wrenching plea from Children With Cancer UK that I’m currently faced with on my regular commute. I’m told that if I text SAVE to 70007 my donation of £3 could save Ella’s life.

Mistakes in fundraising are such rare birds

It’s not often I hear much about charities’ fundraising mistakes. Ask fundraising heads about their successes and they’ll talk to you for hours, but their responses are likely to slow down, falter or possibly stop altogether once the conversation turns to their mishaps. Complaints? No, not many. Money wasted? Not really. Regrets? Never!

It might be time to rationalise the regulation of social enterprise

The UK’s third sector is a complex beast. Alongside registered charities – and their excepted and exempted counterparts – community interest companies are becoming a prominent sub-sector, while social enterprise in its broad form is also on the rise and the rules around cooperative and community benefit societies (also known as bencoms) have recently evolved.

The naughty brigade that flouts the political campaigning rules

It wasn’t the Brethren wot won it, but then what did they stand to lose? After an unexpected Conservative election victory in 1992, The Sun famously claimed that it was they “wot won it”.