Dec 2008 23

Making a distinction between 'charities' and 'campaign groups'5

Today's Times has an interesting piece by Libby Purves on the politicisation and professionalisation of _42146048_homeless_man_203_bbc

the UK's voluntary sector. Taking stock of development since the 1970's Ms Purves observes some distinct and worrying changes in the ethos and priorities of many charities.

Professionalisation, she concedes, was inevitable. Like any organisation a charity needs systems to function effectively. The large salaries for senior executives that have followed were perhaps inevitable too. The problem with professionalisation is that it is has often been accompanied by a 'commercialisation'. Staff begin to be 'employees' of a company, rather than committed activists to the charitable cause.

More worrying than the profesionalisation of charities though, it the 'politicisation' of many organisations. In charities search for funding, and in the Government's pursuit of ways to 'out-source'  the delivery of services, many charities have been drawn into the web of Government, becoming indistinguishable from the quangos with which they compete for taxpayers money.

The steady gravitational pull of central Government has left many big charities utterly reliant on the state for their funds. A perverse consequence of this is that many charities are now allocating less of their resources on  actually doing what they were set up to do (protect children, protect the environment) and have prioritized campaigning.

This should be a concern for all. The ties between Government and charities (as Ms Purves notes) have proved invariably corrupting, limiting their effectiveness and flexibility by binding them up in complex regulation and endless statistical reporting.  Receiving taxpayers' money is also something of a gag. Concern was expressed earlier this year when DfID decided that any charity seeking grants from the Department would not get any funding if involved in lobbying "for or against" the DfID's activities, and if nothing else it is common intuition not to bite the hand that feeds you. But this means many informed people are being lost from public debates, nervous about offending their primary donors.

None of this should be read as a condemnation of political campaign groups though. They are an important part of our pluralist democratic society and many do fine work. It would also be ridiculous considering the TPA's status. But a distinction does need to be wrought between those 'charities' which do conventionally 'good works', and those 'campaign groups' that work to see political change. The elision of these two different groups has been detrimental to the former, and the Government's role in this should be understood and questioned further. If the state wants to see charities playing the front-line role they are best at, it should re-incentivise charitable donation by making it tax-deductible, as it is in the USA. The politicisation of charities does no one any good, and many need to return to their roots and concentrate on doing the job they were set up to do. Channeling resources towards flashy campaigns is easier, no doubt more fun, and may ultimately get you more Government funding, but the purpose of charities is to improve the lot of their fellow man (or beast) and many charities should get on with doing that.

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  • Hardeep Singh

    As I’ve said before those travelling in first class are: Politicians, celebs, heads of charities and few else, how very reflective of our ‘time’. The new aristocracy indeed.
    Charities are big business with their record funding from all manner of channels yet they still don’t seem to have mande any significant headway. They’ll parade a couple of recent achievements but with the degree of funds they receive they should do much more. I donate to charity but I also expect them to raise their game and put it to some use, if that causes them offence then maybe it’s best I move onto an alternative cause or more recently startup my own ‘good causes’ work in the local community.

  • http://www.lowetrust.com Andrew Thomas

    I am a helper for a small medical research charity run by unpaid volunteers. I am extremely concerned by organisations that are allowed to call themseleves charities but are actually quangos that are political lobbying groups or government service providers, run by well paid professional managers and staff dependant on the taxpayer funded grants. Our concern is that due to the marketing budgets, real charities filling the gaps in public services are priced out of events such as the London Marathon, and cannot compete for donations.
    It would be far more democratic if charities/quangos recieving taxpayer funding through offering services or recieving grants were made to clearly state this on their literature.

  • http://birminghamuserwatch.blogspot.com/ Silvis Rivers

    I really do welcome this piece by Ben Farrugia. In my field of NHS mental heath (MH) services (of which I an very critical indeed for its evasion of better patient choices ) its become pretty clear that the drivers behind big MH charities has become Govt social engineering and large grants shaped for Govt outcomes have followed the MH charities making the right ritual noises.
    Politics is not very far behind all of this and connection between the very politicized DOH and large charities are certainly there too . The worrying thing is the Lottery is hardly neutral in all of this and its difficult to see the growth of small locality based User Groups which aid people into structured and autonomous thinking , development and recovery even towards more sensitised re-training – the plain fact is the “Centre and Top” is in perverse competition with the “locally based” – any grants by the Top Down elite MH charities are soaked up by staff “service delivery” – whatever that might mean . I question this because local groups bring innovation and voluntarism with an energy that is authentic and rooted, but it appears to me that is operated against by the current climate of “Big Knows Best”
    However, as the economy alters too and the state sector offloads into the “Light-touch” regulated “Third Sector” we should be very very careful to lobby for enhancement of a Freedom Of Information Act equivalence into these bodies (Like CIC’s and Charities) and try to gauge in a business like way measures on what “lost opportunities” are occuring at local levels because of their corporate efficiency at hoovering up the lottery ….
    A lot of folk would be well advised too to have a serious eye on how large charities once well connected to Govt policy drives become the favoured hub for being able to feed smaller groups some small grants which derive ultimately from the Lottery ..In MH this is becoming a kind of incestuous farce and there is no accountability for it in the brown swill of millions ..

  • J Jenkins

    The situation has got so bad in my view that the word ‘corruption’ is the only correct descriptor.
    Virtually every organisation in the UK – from business trade associations, to church charities – are now so reliant on government for a chunk of their income that the are to all intents politicised.

  • http://benefitfraud.blogspot.com John Page

    The Mail is reporting that “a children’s charity illegally donated money to Labour after receiving nearly £1million of Government funding”.
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1105258/Labour-took-illegal-gifts-childrens-charity-received-1m-taxpayers-cash.html
    Straight corruption.