All in a good cause?

14 December 2009

Today’s big charities are slick operations that spend huge sums on running costs and marketing, says Ed Howker. Worse, many of them have been annexed by the government

According to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, 25,000 British charities received more than three quarters of their funding from government. Of the others, Oxfam received nearly £40 million in public funding — £35 million from the British and EU governments alone, Christian Aid received more than £11 million from Britain and the EU; the World Wildlife Fund £4.8 million, while the RSPB received nearly £20 million. So close to government are the RSPB that at the start of the month they booked out the London Aquarium to host a party to ‘celebrate’ the passing of the Marine and Coastal Access Act with Environment Secretary Hilary Benn as the guest of honour.

But the charities will do more than throw a party when required. At the G8 summit in Gleneagles and even in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit, they were out marching, bringing activists, waving banners — all broadly supportive of the government’s position and calling on the rest of the world to adopt it. Gordon Brown himself joined the G8 march. It was a seismic moment: government strategists working with their counterparts in big charities. In marketing they call this ‘Astroturf’ — it looks like grassroots, but it’s synthetic.

The leaders of these charities still make the claim that they are independent, but this is nonsense when they are in receipt of millions of pounds of government money and when Labour seeks to make political capital from its relationship with them. In his speech to the Labour party conference this year, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband explained how it all works: ‘If you and your neighbours are supporters of Save the Children, Christian Aid and Oxfam and you want funding for development to continue for the next five years, tell them to trust the people who raised the funding, not the Tories, who opposed it every step of the way.’ The charities made no squeals of protest in being declared as part of Labour’s campaign platform — united against the wicked Conservatives.

There are signs that public opinion is turning. Three years ago, a poll by the Centre for Social Justice asked, ‘If you only had £200 to give to a good cause, who would you give to?’ Only 4 per cent opted for a national charity such as Oxfam or Christian Aid. A full 31 per cent said they would seek out a local charity or church working with needy people — organisations too small to be politicised. But the poll, of course, assumes that people have a choice. This year, each household will — through the tax system — pay an average £200 to a charity of the Labour government’s choice. So next time a Christian Aid volunteer comes to your door, do not say, ‘I don’t give to charity.’ If you pay your taxes, you already do.