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

One Christian Aid week, aged seven, I collected charity envelopes with my mum from the terraced homes that rise out of the Calder Valley. Dressed in a blue anorak, I was every bit the budding charity mugger, but there is one doorstep I particularly remember: as usual we asked the occupier if they had ‘ever considered giving any money to Christian Aid?’ ‘Sorry,’ said the middle-aged woman, ‘I don’t give to charity.’ At the time, I thought that seemed monstrous: selfishness dressed-up like a principle. But the more I’ve learnt about Britain’s large charities, the more a little scepticism makes sense.

How much of the money we donate actually reaches good causes? The answer is never quite clear with today’s highly organised and slickly marketed charities. Some seem more like mini political organisations, advancing their cause by lobbying government and, in many cases, working for it. Take Christian Aid, which now has a budget of £82 million — but spends just £54 million of it doing what it says on the charity box: emergency and development aid. That is inefficient. But when you consider that Christian Aid doesn’t really work in Britain, but employs 453 staff here — at an average cost of £37,000 each — and only 306 abroad, inefficient looks indelicate.

More startlingly, a fat lump of Christian Aid’s resources is set aside for what it euphemistically describes as ‘campaigning, advocacy and education’ — or, in other words, lobbying. Last year Christian Aid spent a valiant £12 million putting their point across, primarily in Britain, and almost identical amounts were spent by Oxfam and the RSPB (although the latter describe their lobbying as ‘education, publications and films’). The purpose of some of these campaigns may trouble a well-meaning donor, since they often seem to have a political edge. Today, if you buy your Christmas cards from the RSPB, you might not only be funding the preservation of the Great Crested Grebe but the lesser-spotted New Labour stitch-up, while Christian Aid sometimes looks better suited to fighting elections than poverty.

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