Posts Categorized: Uncategorized

I’m willing to bet Nick Hurd a tenner the big society bank won’t open on time

The Cabinet Office recently laid out clear goals in its structural reform plan for what it will achieve, and when. The plan is a set of apparently cast-iron policy guarantees that the third sector can rely on. It includes 14 measures to bring about the prophesied big society, which if they are kept will have… Read more »

Proceed with caution on the Right to Ask

The Institute of Fundraising has been holding more meetings about a campaign it is planning which has been provisionally called Right to Ask although it has also been mooted that it could be called Right to Give. It’s not surprising that the launch has been delayed from the original target of spring this year. It… Read more »

More proof is needed that the big society can be built with a nudge

Persuasion is better than compulsion in making good citizens. So said Conservative decentralisation minister Greg Clark last week. It is hard to dissent from that. One of New Labour’s enduring flaws was an unerring tendency to pass a law if it came across any form of behaviour it didn’t regard as wholesome. Clark was taking part… Read more »

Fairsharemusic.com faces an uphill struggle

Fairsharemusic.com launched this week with a healthy dose of press coverage, including this prominent article in the Daily Telegraph. In case you missed it, it’s a music download site that promises to donate half its net profits to charity – they call it “feel-good downloading”. The British Heart Foundation, Centrepoint, NSPCC and Friends of the… 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 »

If we all gave one per cent of income, the sky would be the limit

Francis Davis, a policy adviser on the big society, has published a paper called The Diamond Dividend in which he estimates that £4bn more could be raised for charity if people gave one per cent of their income. Only £4bn? He is no doubt wise to be restrained in his estimates, but a back-of-the-envelope calculation… Read more »

Amalgamating dormant funds is sensible, even if it means Aberdeen’s aged virgins lose out

Last week, Aberdeen City Council announced plans to amalgamate 41 charitable funds, including one established in 1634 for the benefit of “aged virgins” and another set up in 1718 to aid “persons deprived of the use of reason” –  a brilliant phrase indicating that political correctness was alive and well in the 18th century. These… Read more »

HMRC doesn’t trust charities

It is difficult to believe that HM Revenue & Customs likes charities very much. Looking at the sector through the eyes of the taxman, charities are walking liabilities, profiting from generous tax breaks, but poorly-regulated and badly in need of a firm hand. The taxman has glimpsed in the current laws potential for charities to… Read more »

Large charities win contracts, but how does that square with big society rhetoric?

Are small charities better than big ones? Few questions provoke more ire. Stephen Bubb, chief executive of Acevo, says it is a “senseless and divisive argument”. But the new government seems to be following the path trodden by Iain Duncan Smith five years ago when he contrasted “bureaucratic and risk-averse” big charities with “the instinctive… Read more »

The government’s decision on Refugee and Migrant Justice is reminiscent of the Thatcher years

David Cameron spent a lot of time in opposition playing down comparisons between his politics and those of the Thatcher government. When he came into power in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, it seemed their influence might strengthen the government’s credentials on social justice. Now, a few weeks into the new regime, a junior minister… Read more »