There was a very loud groan from a room full of fundraisers at a recent conference when they were asked whether any corporates had offered to paint some walls for them recently. They rolled their eyes as they grumbled that they didn’t have any walls left to paint, explaining that this was one of the… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Uncategorized
To tweet or not to tweet?
The recent discussion about the use of Twitter and other social media sites by fundraisers flagged up some really interesting points both for and against. Both sides were compelling. However – and this is probably unsurprising, considering I’m the online editor of Third Sector and champion of all things digital – I came down in… Read more »
Is volunteering too much hard work for charities?
Two weeks ago, at a round table hosted by the European Association of Philanthropy and Giving, I listened to a group of people working in the charity sector talking about the difficulties they faced using professional volunteers. You would think this would be easy – get in an accountant, an IT expert, a designer, and… Read more »
Should we be putting financial value on volunteering?
On Monday, the front page of the Guardian carried a story about a scheme being proposed in Windsor & Maidenhead where new volunteers get Nectar Points in exchange for carrying out good works: hold a tea party for pensioners, get money off at Argos. There seems some potential problems with this idea. First of all,… Read more »
Trick or treat in the big society
Like many people, I imagine, I spent lot of yesterday evening answering the door to children in a variety of hideous costumes squealing ‘”trick or treat?” Unlike in previous years, I had anticipated it and spent a fiver at the local shops on an assortment of tooth-rotting gunge to hand out as insurance against getting… Read more »
Pensions: the dormant volcano?
George Osborne indicated during the comprehensive spending review that he expects to take up most of the recommendations in Lord Hutton’s interim report on pensions, published earlier this month. Hutton’s review, commissioned by Osborne earlier this year, admitted in effect that the government could not afford its pension debts, and recommended steps to reduce costs…. Read more »
Was the £100m Transition Fund due to be allocated to the sector anyway?
The dust has settled a little following the comprehensive spending review, and it may be time to take a look at whether the Office of Civil Society did well or badly out of it. At first glance, it looks like it suffered worse than average. Three years ago, when it was the Office of the… Read more »
Nice transition fund – what about the rest?
There are a couple of striking things about the new hundred-million-pound Transition Fund for the voluntary sector, announced in the yesterday comprehensive spending review yesterday. The first is that it happened at all, given the overall 19 per cent cut in public spending over the next four years. The civil society minister, Nick Hurd, has… Read more »
Hand-holding by the Office For Civil Society
The Office for Civil Society issued two short documents last week. There was a consultation about how it should take forward capacity-building in the sector, and a policy statement about building a stronger civil society. Does the policy document add greatly to the sum of human knowledge? Not really. It was mostly a recapitulation of… Read more »
Stereotyping beneficiaries can have adverse consequences, but let’s not get over-sensitive
So, 57 per cent of Third Sector readers do not agree that it is acceptable to stereotype beneficiaries when making fundraising appeals, according to last week’s online poll. And I have to say that I agree with this majority – to a point. First of all, I must say something in agreement with the findings… Read more »