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Peacock displays her farewell feathers

Finance | Gareth Jones | 1 Jun 2006

Finance directors should harness the growing confidence within the sector to become more strategic and less operational in what they do, said the outgoing chair of the Charity Commission, Geraldine Peacock. Speaking the CFDG annual conference, Peacock said that finance directors have traditionally concentrated on "bean-counting", however, they need to become more creative with regards to income generation.

"You can't run an organisation without making profit, but you need to know what you want to do with that profit," she said. "The sack cloth and ashes attitude is old hat... we have to stop whingeing about what other people will do for us. We need to compete on equal terms and become more businesslike in what we do. We could even lead rather than follow government and funding agendas."

This need for greater self-sufficiency stems from the insecure nature of grants and the fact that traditional forms of fundraising are not generating enough money to meet the demand for services provided by charities.

"Traditional income streams are drying up," said Peacock. "Legacy donations are going down, door-to-door, street fundraising and raffles are just not enough anymore. We need to go beyond profit."

Creative fundraising solutions she suggests include larger charities setting up loan funds for smaller organisations; rethinking the provision of free services "because you don't value what you don't pay for... being charitable doesn't necessarily mean being free"; investing in projects that essentially fulfil the mission of the charity and joining forces with similar organisations.

Peacock also called for an amnesty which would, she said, prune up to 15,000 organisations that remain registered as charities, despite being dormant. Her proposal was a six-month process of removing charities from the register and distributing their assets to grantmaking trusts or organisations with similar charitable purposes.

Later, Rosie Chapman, director of policy and effectiveness at the Charity Commission, told CF: "The Charity Commission can help trustees of organisations who have wound down their services to transfer the assets to similar charities. Deregistering can be daunting, but it is certainly preferable to having to continue submitting accounts and dealing with other bureaucracy when your organisation is no longer functioning."

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