Donors, not charities, are in charge of stewardship

Fundraising | Gemma Ware | 2 Jul 2008

Charities should be careful when using the term stewardship because it is the donors, not the fundraisers who are the stewards of the cause, according to a stewardship officer at the Church of England.

Speaking at the PF Conference last month, Ian Clark, said: “Treating ‘stewardship’ as an internal charity process runs the danger of confusing some of charity’s most generous supporters. They may imagine they don’t need to exercise personal stewardship if the charity is ‘doing it’ for them.

“By all means let secular charities borrow some of the core faith-based stewardship principles such as planned giving and express them in non-religious ways, but leave donors to be the stewards, not the charity.”

Gordon Michie, director of development at Relationship Marketing, said charities should see themselves as steward of their cause. which “should inspire the public to become a steward in the long-term”.

Who's Who: Gemma Ware

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.