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| Recently The Times ran an article that argued charities shouldn’t deliver public services because they aren’t fit for purpose. DSC Chief Executive Debra Allcock Tyler reacts. |
I don’t know about you but I’m fed up to the back teeth with being derided and insulted by members of the chattering classes who seem to have nothing better to do than kick lumps out of charities.
A columnist in a national newspaper recently argued that charities shouldn’t deliver public services. Ok, so far, so good, I thought. Why? Because we should be independent and not beholden to political priorities or bureaucratic agendas? Because we exist to serve citizens not their governments? Not even close.
According to the columnist, and a few ‘experts’ fished out of Google, charities just aren’t fit for purpose. Apparently all 160,000+ of them are ‘inefficient’, ‘mismanaged’, ‘unrepresentative’ and ‘crippled by bitchiness’.
Charities are ‘inefficient’ because there are so many of them. Go figure. Next time I hear how many branches of McDonalds there are throughout the world I’ll point out how inefficient that is.
Of course broadly speaking charities are not ‘inefficient’ – most run on a shoestring. The average bankers’ bonus would eclipse most charities’ entire budget – a majority operate on less than £10k per year and over 80% function on less than £100,000k.
Arguing that the number of charities which exist in a particular population is an indication of greater or less ‘efficiency’ is utter nonsense. It’s more likely to indicate the level of civic activism – a good thing.
The columnist cited an increase in serious concerns investigated by the Charity Commission last year as evidence of charity ‘mismanagement’ across the piece. There was in fact an increase in investigations, but the number still amounts to less than 2% of charities.
We’re supposedly ‘unrepresentative’ because we’re too white, middle class, older and male. The columnist’s critique holds up on the first count perhaps, but not the rest. He totally ignored for example the fact that something like 45% of charity trustees are female. Compare that to a paltry 12-13% of women on company boards and a truly pathetic 21% of Parliament. And of course older people who are financially well off are more likely to volunteer – they can afford to.
Charities are supposedly ‘crippled by bitchiness’ as well, because we suffer from too many employment tribunals. Please. If we were unionised to the extent that the public sector is, there would be no tribunals at all because managers would be terrified to fire anybody.
The columnist concluded by arguing that charities suffered from having too much passion. Absolute bloody poppycock. We need all the passion we can get. Do you change the world by being utterly boring and uninspiring? Of course not! People don’t give away their free time and money for a pie-chart or a strategic plan. You have to demonstrate your own passion and engage theirs!
Charities aren’t perfect. Just like any other area of human society they are subject to the flaws of human nature. Some charities are fantastic and some aren’t so great. Some volunteers deserve sainthood and some do it to advance their careers. A whole lot of us are just doing the very best we can in often difficult circumstances.
So I salute all of you who work damn hard for your cause. Not because it’s a job, but because you believe in it. Because you give your time, energy, money and general life force for others and the common good of your community. Because you believe in a good old fashioned idea called altruism. Don’t listen to all the negative static out there – your society and your community needs you.
Debra was reacting to ‘Good intentions are not enough to make a difference’ by Sathnam Sanghera, in the Times, 26 July 2010.