MP suggests redistributing philanthropists’ donations 1

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 2 Nov 2011

A Labour backbencher has suggested the government should consider redistributing philanthropists’ donations to make sure all English regions are funded equally.

Dan Jarvis asked culture minister Ed Vaizey whether he had thought about “the merits of managing the distribution of donation funding from philanthropists”, but Vaizey promptly poured cold water on the idea.

“The entire ethos of philanthropy is built around the relationship between the donor and the cause or institution they support. It is not for government to seek to mediate that relationship, nor the funds involved,” said Vaizey.

The minister added that the government’s approach to ensuring a level of regional equality in receiving donations is based on improving organisations’ own capacity to fundraise. “We are instead working to strengthen fundraising skills and boost levels of giving across all regions of England,” he said.

Jarvis’ suggestion came not a week after a fellow Labour MP, Barbara Keeley, called a parliamentary debate about the distribution of lottery funding across areas of deprivation, particularly in her own constituency.

“This disparity in funding is unacceptable,” she said last week.

She said that while a town in her constituency, Little Hulton, had been promised a £1m Big Lottery Fund grant 15 months ago “not one penny of lottery money has gone to the local community”. She complained that the Cities of London and Westminster had received £914m in grants, whereas her constituency had received just £6m.

Little Hulton had not bid for the money, but was offered it as part of the Big Local Trust scheme which funds previously overlooked regions, and Keeley said it was “crazy” for BIG to try to identify a ‘bidding organisation’ when no bid for funding had been made.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Hugh Robertson promised Keeley that he would write to the BIG chair to raise her grievances.

Directory: Big Lottery Fund

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Nick Mason
Head of Fundraising Strategy
RNIB
3 Nov 2011

While I understand the concern that some areas receive more government or grant funding than others, it is an absurd idea for government to attempt to redistribute philanthropists' donations.

Not only does it remove the relationship between donor and beneficiary, effectively subverting the philanthropic aspects, but it falls foul of what economists call moral hazard - why would anyone give, if they know that the government is going to remove the need through redistribution from others?

While the government's localism agenda might be controversial in some areas, it does at least recognise what fundraisers have known for ages; that the closer people are to the problem and to seeing the impact of their funding the solution, the more likely they are to give.

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