If you can’t trust a charity…
A couple of months ago, I was leaving the swimming pool with the older two boys and I was stopped by a nice man selling lottery tickets for a local hospice. I’ve long been of the opinion that larger charities have become too much like self-serving businesses, but this was a good local cause, so I bought a tenner’s worth of tickets. I went happily on my way, a spring in my step.
Since then, I have been contacted several times by phone or mailshot to tell me my lottery has expired and asking would I like to make it a regular donation. Which begs the question, how much of my donation ended up in the hospice’s running costs? It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that my original tenner must have atrophied to almost nothing through the costs of chasing me for more money. Was the original transaction effectively a con to get my details?
I know I shouldn’t let it get to me, but it does. I have been bitten this way too many times over the years and now I am cynical. In the past I have found that any donation just leads to more emotionally manipulative letters through the door – “Imagine waking up to feel hunger gnawing at your stomach.” And my experience fades into nothing compared to those kind souls such as the late Olive Cooke who was getting 260 letters a month asking her for more.
But from the charity sector’s point of view, are they not biting the hand that feeds? The response from the charity sector sounded like any other bog standard corporate excuse with Peter Lewis, chief executive of the Institute of Fundraising telling the Daily Mail:
“We are absolutely committed to ensuring that our Code of Fundraising Practice achieves the right balance in setting robust and clear standards which enable fundraisers to ask for money in a safe and legitimate way while at the same time respecting and protecting the rights of individuals.
We welcome the opportunity to talk with the Minister for Civil Society to update him on the plans that we have in place to review our Code and make sure that we act on any learning that arises from the FRSB’s investigation into the tragic death of Olive Cooke.”
It’s not about rights, it’s about trust. Trust is the glue that holds society together. And if we can’t trust charities who can we trust?