Ditching that Saintly Image
Charities, it is still widely believed, are separate from government, staffed entirely by volunteers and spend every penny donated on the cause they support. Noble stuff, but in most cases entirely wrong. Yet these misapprehensions underpin much of the trust and goodwill behind giving. And there is concern that such outdated perceptions could blow up in charities’ faces as people begin to discover what the voluntary sector is really about.
High-profile international programmes of awareness-raising activities, such as Make Poverty History, have dragged the voluntary sector into the spotlight and shown charity workers to be as much business entrepreneurs as they are angels of mercy. But with the spotlight comes scrutiny, and unless charities present compelling cases for political campaigning, six-figure salaries and paying the expenses of celebrities who go on demanding trips to refugee camps for nothing, they may get bitten. ‘If people become more sceptical about how charities use their donations, they will be less inclined to give money,’ says Nick Aldridge, director of strategy at the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO).
A wide range of initiatives have been undertaken to secure long-term trust in the sector by explaining what charities do and publishing the figures. But it’s still difficult to give donors a complete picture because, unlike profit-driven businesses, charities can’t measure achievement purely by the bottom line.
The report Funding Success suggests this might explain some of the communication difficulties charities face. Nevertheless, it suggests there are sound reasons for trying. Many funders, it claims, regard high overheads on, for example, premises, publicity and so on, that are properly accounted for, as a sign of an efficiently run organisation, rather than a waste of resources. Detailed reporting can be an important element in efforts to increase transparency. Better information might also unlock more money by highlighting social problems, and explaining what might be done to address them.
Some charities are already taking steps in this direction. The Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) introduced annual impact reporting, to tell people about the effects of its work in a broader sense than an annual report would usually allow.
Each impact report looks back at what has been achieved over the previous 12 months and also states the charity’s aims for the year ahead. Brian Lamb, director of communications at the RNID, says the sector has been complacent about transparency because of the high level of trust it enjoys. ‘We have not been good at educating the public on issues such as why we do a lot of campaigning,’ he says. ‘But the more high-profile the sector becomes, the more people will ask questions.’
Baroness Onora O’Neill, chair of the Nuffield Foundation, says building trust goes deeper than providing information. She points out that the additional reporting and accounting requirements imposed on institutions across all sectors in recent years may have made them more transparent, but it has not made them more trusted. ‘... If we are to judge for ourselves, we need genuine communication in which we can question and observe, check and even challenge the evidence that others present.’ Laying out the evidence of what has been done, with all its shortcomings, may provide a rather better basis for placing - or refusing - trust than any number of glossy publications that trumpet unending success.
Not everyone thinks the public needs to be spoon-fed reams of information to maintain confidence. ‘There isn’t any evidence that there is a crisis of confidence in charities,’ says Cathy Pharoah, research director at the Charities Aid Foundation. The facts support her claim. In a Charity Commission report published in November last year, the public awarded charities 6.3 out of 10 on trust. Pharoah believes key donors are savvier than they are portrayed. ‘There is heavy dependence on middle-class donors for charity income, and I would be amazed if they didn’t realise charities had to pay to get professional staff,’ she says.
She believes the biggest threats to trust are the kind of scandals that blighted the Scottish voluntary sector in 2003. Two high-profile charities, Breast Cancer Research (Scotland) and Moonbeams, were exposed for spending a fraction of their profits on their causes. The revelations created intensely damaging media coverage. Even charity stalwarts were shocked by how quickly the coverage snowballed as two bad stories turned into a sector-wide crisis. ‘Those two incidents caused a media frenzy as journalists took every opportunity to undermine the sector,’ says Fiona Duncan, director of external affairs at Capability Scotland. After suffering a media grilling herself, Duncan launched Giving Scotland to redress the balance. Fourteen charities, plus the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Institute of Fundraising Scotland, joined together to put out communications restoring confidence in charities. The Scottish Executive pledged £30,000 and, with donations from corporate supporters, the campaign was able to secure advertising worth £300,000 for a lightning two- week campaign over Christmas 2003.
Two months before the campaign was launched, The Herald newspaper published a poll revealing that 52 per cent of people were less likely to give because of the scandals. Giving Scotland did a similar poll in February 2004 and this time more than half of the population said they were more likely to consider giving because of the campaign. ‘We learned about strength in numbers and the importance of timing - because it was Christmas, we were able to get good coverage,’ says Duncan.
It was an effective rearguard campaign. The numerous proactive initiatives now underway across the UK give charities the chance to prevent the situation ever getting that bad again - but their success will depend on whether they are prepared to shed their saintly image and rally to the cause of creating a newer, bolder one.