Letters | 22 February 2018

How to save charities

Sir: The sexual abuse scandal is merely one aspect of the morally compromised status of large charities such as Oxfam (‘The dark side of charity’, 17 February). Oxfam receives a large part of its income from the government, which necessarily makes it a delivery agency for the state. It spends a proportion of its income on political campaigns, often critical of the same government from which it gets money and on whose behalf it acts. The self-serving hypocrisy of biting the hand that feeds it seems not to bother its senior management.

Oxfam and others also rely on many small donations, often from people of modest means. Others work — for free — in their shops. The money thus raised is used, in part, to pay six-figure salaries to the charities’ senior managers. The chief executive of Oxfam earns as much as many government ministers and substantially more than most people could ever dream of. The sense of entitlement exhibited by such professional charity managers is more exploitative than charitable.

If the ‘third sector’ is to recover its honour, it needs to be truly independent of government funding and its managers need to show a personal commitment to charity. Anyone who wants to earn a commercially competitive salary should work in a commercially competitive environment.
Jeremy Stocker

Willoughby, Warwickshire

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Sir: Harriet Sergeant’s criticism of aid hits the mark for many overseas charities, but there is a risk here of tarring many worthy organisations with the same brush.

There is a branch of international aid which seeks to support the development of local economies through investing in the recipient country’s entrepreneurs. At the smaller end, there are microfinance organisations which provide ambitious entrepreneurs, especially women, with small loans to create life-transforming businesses.