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Oh, what a year

Finance | Ian Allsop | 21 Nov 2008

Ian Allsop casts his eye over 2008.

As it is the last Charity Finance of the year, I thought it would be appropriate  to have a look back over the last 12 months. It's a common device in Sunday newspapers towards the end of the year, as an easy way of filling pages. Throw in a quiz and book choices from a few famous people and you can cover acres of white space pretty easily. Of course this works better if it has been a busy year rather than one where very little  has happened but we'll give it a go.

January saw the publication of the Charity Commission's public benefit guidance. As ever the devil was in the detail and the mistaken omission of the words "under no circumstances" in one of the paragraphs on public benefit reporting was to cause some pretty nasty media coverage about Dame Suzi.

"When reporting on the public benefit issue, the national media shall completely misunderstand the whole issue, overplay the angle of it being about stripping public schools of tax breaks, and use it as the basis of some shabby, low personal attacks on the Charity Commission's chair, never missing the opportunity to comment  on her surname and appearance."

In February, the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) launched its campaign for adopting the use of the term ‘civil society', and as the year drew on, it was noticeable how much more holding doors open, doffing caps and polite queuing there was.

March saw the first instalment in a literary phenomenon, a diary of sorts that has quickly earned the right to  be mentioned with the greats of the genre - Pepys, Mole, Jones. The ebullient, or should that be ebubbient, blog of the Acevo supremo has become required reading for all those interested in sector issues, as well as more bohemian concerns.

In April, Adventure Capital Fund took over the running of Futurebuilders with the promise to get money out to those who need it more quickly. So successful have they been that by October organisations were reporting receiving loan capital up to three weeks before they realised they needed it.

The Compact got a new Commissioner in June as Sir Bert Massie accepted what he denied being a poisoned chalice before taking a generous swig and turning a funny shade of green.

The summer saw the PASC report  into the third sector's delivery of public services assert that more evidence was needed to support the assertion that charities added value. Another report concluded that more evidence was needed that reports by committees of well-meaning MPs on subjects they sometimes know little about, at taxpayers' expense, added value.

September saw the first indication that cats were far from lucky, with the unprecedented news that the Labour party had somehow mistakenly accepted a donation that it shouldn't, this time from Catz Club charity. Cats Protection followed them padding down the feline road of misery when it was named as the highest-profile casualty of the Icelandic banking collapse. Catford Community Church and Catalyst Dance and Drama Group were among the charities nervously brushing up their media risk management procedures just in case, and there was an air of inevitability about the negative reaction to Rainer Crime Concern's baffling rebrand as Catch22. In October, the sector got a shiny new minister, Kevin Brennan. Using long-established protocol Brennan said: "I can't believe I have ended up doing this job, I will do my best but frankly I was hoping for something more glamorous."

The Commission's new online register came down hard against charities filing their accounts late, with a red border used to highlight offenders. It's a policy we have taken to heart here at Charity Finance. Anyone more than ten minutes late in the morning has to wear a red jumper and from February, any contributor who sends in an article past the editorial deadline will find it framed in vivid scarlet when published.

As 2008 drew to a close the biggest leadership conundrum facing the world was resolved. No not that one, but the debate about who is the leading voluntary sector leader. And history was made as for the first time a white, middle-class, middle-aged male emerged as the surprise choice as the sector's voice.

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