Posts Categorized: Uncategorized

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 »

It was pea and ham hock soup and fine wine at Nuffield Health’s annual general meeting held at The Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall on Wednesday. And why not? The charity, which runs private hospitals and gyms, has had a very good year.   

I have signed up to support another charity – and am suffering already from donor remorse. I was wandering around a consumer show yesterday afternoon when I was surprised to see a charity stand. It seemed incongruous among the other stalls, which were selling high price goods, although on reflection it made perfect sense –… Read more »

Increasingly, we’re hearing that charities are going to have to face up to a “new normal”. In other words, a world in which they have to do more with less. The average charity worker hears from every side that you face year upon year of terrible, lean, depressing times. The world, we hear, will never… Read more »

This week, Third Sector has published an analysis of ATM giving, a system recently created by Link to allow donors to give money to charity at cash machines.

If you’re expecting to increase the income of  the charity sector through fundraising, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Fundraising is becoming a more crowded environment  these days. More and more people are doing it. Last week, a survey showed that university fundraising was growing like billy-o: in ten years, universities have doubled… Read more »

I’ve never come across a business unwilling to boast about its corporate responsibility efforts. My inbox is stuffed with press releases from companies about the epic bike rides, marathons, mountain ascents and trips deep into the developing world that their employees have undertaken in aid of their charity of the year. Sometimes, the PR agencies… Read more »

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 »

The Charities Aid Foundation proposed, in the wake of yesterday’s Budget, that the suggested Gift Aid reform could raise more than £700m for the sector. They’ve produced some detailed calculations to support this thesis. But I’m not sure they’re right.

Every year, when the Chancellor stands up to speak, you get a sense of a set of dice settling in the cup. Is this going be a good Budget for the voluntary sector? Because despite all the predictions and expectations, it’s pretty much down to a dice roll whether a Budget turns out well.