There is a risk that charities are seen as “left-wing, sandal wearing hippies”, a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference heard.
Vicky McDermott told delegates at a fringe event on ‘Can modern charities be trusted?’, hosted by Acevo, that there is a “huge risk of us all being seen as left-wing, sandal wearing hippies”.
McDermott’s comments came after an audience member in the session spoke about a “strong pervasive left-wing culture in the sector”.
She said that in actuality there was a wide-range of political views across organisations.
At a separate event, Frank Sooden from Joseph Rowntree Foundation said that the make-up of charities "would probably lean more to the left".
Sooden's view is backed up by YouGov research which shows the average charity worker has more left-wing views than the average Briton.
Charities the new opposition?
In a session on ‘Team GB: How can charities and government make Britain stronger’, hosted by CAF, the panel was asked by Nick Mason, a fundraising strategist and former Conservative Party candidate, whether “in light of Labour moving increasingly to the Left, are charities the new opposition”?
Sooden, head of public affairs at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation was sitting on the panel. He said that that “there is no doubt, particularly when it comes to the big national charities, if you look to the political complexion of many of the staff, they would probably lean more to the left”.
He said that there is a “big perception issue, and it is kind of grounded in reality, which is that there is this imbalance”.
He spoke of a situation where he had tried to hire a deputy, and been told that he would not be able to hire a Conservative unless he raised the salary by £20,000. He said this comes at the same time as a pressure from charities to not be paying very large salaries.
He added: “There is an issue there. This could just be my particular discipline and obviously I don’t think you have to be of one party to be involved with the charity sector - obviously that is not the case. But there may be something in how charities can better recruit from their volunteer base.”
But he added that charities are “realistic enough to look at the polls and know what is happening politically”. He said all charities actually want are “staff that are not really ideological on any end”.
He said: “There is an expectation that you will leave your politics at home, and good staff are those that can help you make the best argument to the people in power.”
McDermott also said later on in Acevo’s session that it is naïve to pretend that all issues charities deal with are political.
She said: “We must not confuse having a view about something that is political, with being party political. That is where the confusion comes in all the time. I don’t know a single issue that any charity is dealing with that isn’t political - the environment, social care, health etc. These are deeply political issues, so to say we need to pretend that they are not is naïve at best. What we need to do is ensure that we are not pressing the views of the individuals in those organisations on beneficiaries.”
