Sector leaders warned yesterday that charities need to get better at answering the public’s questions if the sector is to hold on to high levels of trust.
Speaking at a debate on public perceptions of charity, Charity Commisson chair William Shawcross said that “too often charities respond defensively” when faced with “legitimate questions” about issues like executive pay and charitable expenditure.
“I think the public has a pretty good understanding of the things that really do matter,” Shawcross said. "While they might struggle with the detail, their fundamental expectations are pretty much in line with charity law."
But he warned that “fewer people trust charities to work independently” and that “charities need to take heed”.
Sir Stuart Etherington, chief executive of NCVO, told charities that they should expect more scrutiny from the public as “we live in a less deferential society”.
“We have been subject to a range of scrutiny over the past year,” he said. And while some things like fundraising techniques “come around and around”, the “abuse of tax reliefs seems to be relatively recent – and there may well be more”.
He warned that: “I wonder if we would have been able to run the Give it Back George campaign in the wake of the Cup Trust scandal.”
Sir Stuart reminded people that other sectors had recently been the focus of public scrutiny, and if charities are next in line, “we need to have some answers,” he said.
The sector needs to “develop the capability of delivering tactical responses when under threat”, he said.
NCVO is involved with a working party set up by CharityComms to improve public understanding of charity.
Etherington also called for “more transparency” and a “greater focus on the impact that charities have”. He suggested it would be good to “better agree data [about the voluntary sector] between the major players”.
He also cautioned against overreacting to criticism on social media and told charities not to “chase the Twitter feed”.
Mainstream media coverage of charities
Joe Saxton, founder of nfpSynergy and a member of the CharityComms working group, argued that the problem is that the media “only covers charities when something awful happens” and pointed out that the BBC has no regular programme on charities.
He suggested that the mainstream media should cover the charity sector in a similar way to how it covers the arts to improve the public’s understanding.
“Trust and confidence in charities is high – the problem is that it is not built on strong foundations. It needs to be built on stone not sand,” Saxton said.
Lesley-Anne Alexander, chief executive of RNIB and chair of Acevo, added that the language used to talk about charities and public sector funding needed to change.
Instead of referring to “charities that receive public money” she argued that charities should talk about “earning contracts” and tell the public how difficult it is to win government contracts.
Alexander also warned against Shawcross’s recent endorsement of the proposal that large charities should have to pay for the Commission, saying that it would be difficult to explain to donors.
The debate was organised by law firm Russell-Cooke.
