Posts Categorized: Uncategorized

The bullying row and the human factor

There are three aspects to the Gordon Brown bullying row – the political one, the charity one and the one where these two meet. The political aspect attracts most attention, and in it there’s more heat than light – witness the splendid shouting match between journalist Andrew Rawnsley and former deputy prime minister John Prescott… Read more »

Cashback websites promising charity donations? Don’t get excited

Last week was a busy one for online fundraising. First, Oxfam announced the launch of Compare for Good, a price comparison website that will donate two thirds of its profits to the charity. Then ‘cashback’ website Quidco announced it will follow suit. Like Compare for Good, it makes money from commission paid by online retailers… Read more »

Was this the Charity Tribunal’s last hurrah?

The final outcome of the Kidd Legacy case, announced by the charity tribunal  on Wednesday, looks like a very satisfying one – but you can’t help fearing that there might not be many more where that came from. In many ways the Kidd Legacy appeal is a shining example of what the tribunal was set… Read more »

Charities should be more than an afterthought when politicians talk tax

Among the ideas in the Charity Finance Directors’ Group’s  election manifesto is one for establishing a review panel to scrutinise new legislation at an early stage and find out whether it will throw a giant spanner into the works of the charity sector. The benefit of this proposal is obvious: every time the Government introduced… Read more »

What’s going on at The Alzheimer’s Society?

Few articles in recent months have generated as many heated calls and emails to Third Sector as the restructuring at the Alzheimer’s Society. The society, like many charities, wants to win more public sector contracts and the Department of Health’s publication last year of the first-ever National Dementia Strategy for England makes now a good… Read more »

Telephone fundraising might not be pleasant – but it works

Charity call centre scandal, screamed a headline in the News of the World last Sunday. The paper had sent an undercover reporter to a training session for callers at telephone fundraising agency Pell and Bales.   It accused Pell and Bales of using “shameless tactics” to “generate money from the jobless, frail and even sick.”… Read more »

Let more public bodies join British Waterways in the voluntary sector

Last week, British Waterways said it wanted to leave the embrace of Government, and set up as a charity. Inspired by the National Trust, it said it could stand better on its own two feet. This started me wondering. How many quangos would be better off if they followed British Waterways’ example, and set up… Read more »

Funding the Future conference: policy was thin on the ground as Nick Hurd recycled his jokes

Shadow charities minister Nick Hurd announced to delegates at the Funding the Future conference yesterday that he was going to tell them something they might know already. “There’s going to be a general election soon.” It was not the first time he’d made the joke. He said it last week at an Institute of Fundraising conference,… Read more »

Making sense of social media is like herding cats

We had half-an-hour to go before the panel I was chairing at the Media 140 event on social media in the third sector event last week was due to face the audience. Fear was setting in. Huddled in the corner, the panellists and I were chatting about the kinds of questions I would be putting… Read more »

An extra five hundred million for charities? Here’s why See the Difference is too good to be true

According to Dominic Vallely, one of the founders of the soon-to-launch charity video sharing website See the Difference, it is like being at the beginning of Google. At least that’s what he told me when I visited his offices last week. Vallely restated his bold claim in terms more relevant to the sector. “Children in… Read more »