Confidence In Charities Is On The Up?
The public’s trust and confidence in charities has slightly increased over the past three years, according to a recent Charity Commission’s report, with only doctors and the police receiving a higher confidence rating.
This is welcome news to many hard-pressed charities in the South West, particularly those relying heavily on public donations and legacies, but they have been warned not to be complacent. The public still has significant concerns over the lack of transparency on how money is spent and certain fundraising practices.
The report Study into Public Trust and Confidence in Charities, asked over 1,000 people about their feelings towards the charity sector. Trust and confidence scored 6.6 out of a possible 10. The figure was 6.3 when the survey was last carried out three years ago.
The survey found that 18% of people gave more than £200 to charity, 47% gave goods and 85% gave money in the last year. 73% believed the sector played an ’essential’ or ’very important’ role in society.
However, 16%, said they did not trust charities. Significant numbers also admitted to not knowing much about how charities are run or managed, felt charities spent too much on salaries and administration and that some still engaged in dubious fundraising practices.
Commenting on the survey results, the Commission’s chair Dame Suzi Leather said, “More people giving time and goods is very good news for charities, their donors, beneficiaries and the public in general. We must listen to what the public tells us they think of charities, and most importantly what makes people more or less likely to trust charities. We want to talk with charities about what can be learnt from this, and what practical steps we can take to pick up on this research.”
Acevo’s deputy chief executive Dr Peter Kyle also welcomed the report as good news, but warned that the sector must not become complacent over public trust in light of it. “As a sector with an increasing role in advocacy and in the provision of public services, expectations are increasingly high for the third sector,” he said. “This report shows that the general public are ready to challenge the performance of charities. We must increase our capacity to be able to handle such challenges by the public.” [Quotes from Charity Times website]
Perhaps this is the first evidence that recent attempts to improve standards in fundraising from the public may be having the desired effect. For example, the introduction of the Fundraising Standards Board scheme, now with a membership of over 800 charities, requires them to sign up to codes of good fundraising practice approved by the Institute of Fundraising.
In April this year new rules, under the Charities Act 2006, require professional fundraisers to disclose to donors more information on how much of the donation actually goes to the charity. The Charity Commission is also clamping down on charities not publishing their accounts on time.
But clearly there is further work to do and it is still too early to say that these attempts by the charity sector to drive up standards will have a lasting effect on public perceptions.
For more information or advice, contact James Evans
Foot Anstey is offering a special seminar to help local charities take advantage of recent changes in charity law on 11th June in Exeter and 26th June in Plymouth.
For further information on the seminar please contact Gillian Brown on 01752 675002 or email gillian.brown@foot-ansteys.co.uk or click on the relevant location to book online:
Published 05/06/2008. The author of this article is James Evans
