Charity bashing news stories are on the rise but the increasingly harsh tone is more of a worry than specific inaccuracies, says Kirsty Weakley.

When taken together two recent pieces in the Telegraph appear to indicate an escalation of the media’s anti-charity agenda that the sector needs to be alert to.

It makes the work of projects like the Understanding Charities Group and NCVO’s Constructive Voices even more important.

The first, on Saturday, was its favourable coverage of the second piece of questionable research from the True and Fair Foundation, Lifting the Lid, which accuses charity shops of being inefficient. Now today the newspaper has published a front-page attack, based on the Charity Commission’s latest guidance on campaigning during the EU referendum.

Taken together these pieces appear to indicate an escalation of the media’s anti-charity agenda.

Today’s news item in the Telegraph claims that the Commission has issued a “warning” to “crack down on environmental groups after they speak out against Brexit”. In fact the Commission has issued guidance for all charities and there’s no hint in the press release that the regulator is specifically concerned about environmental organisations.

Actually two of the Telegraph’s examples – Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth – have a separate charity and company so that they can campaign. This was buried at the end of the article, and did not appear on the front page with the rest of the piece. Which is troubling to say the least.

More on the True and Fair report

The paper covered this latest bit of questionable research from the True and Fair Foundation, despite being warned again that there were a number of holes in its methodology.

Last week I highlighted some of the inaccuracies in the draft report from the True and Fair Foundation, and since then Karl Wilding at NCVO has written a comprehensive rebuttal and today Bob Humphries, former finance director at Oxfam, has written a detailed analysis.

What struck me was that the overall tone of the report was more damaging than the inaccuracies. The report was clearly setting out to prove a point, and defend its previous work, with little time for opposing viewpoints.

The foundation’s rationale for identifying the 50 largest charities is strange to say the least. It only includes only unrestricted income and then deducted “any income within this number that was specifically stated to have derived from government grants (save gift aid), acquired assets, designated income, corporate donations, and investment income or endowment funds” and those where income comes from just one or two individuals.

Far from learning from the criticism levelled at the first report, this one seeks to defend it and suggests that the reaction from the sector was “defensive” and “overly emotional”.

Not only is this an incredibly patronising and unprofessional way to air disagreements but it’s also a pathetic attempt to side-step the criticism.

The report was half right on that point though – the reaction was “emotional” and rightly so. Dedicated professionals who have spent their careers providing robust and informative data about the sector were understandably exasperated, frustrated and angry. But this does not mean that their responses were not grounded in facts and it is clear from the published email exchange between Wilding and Gina Miller that attempts were made to explain the errors in methodology long before the report was published.

The Foundation does not appear to have attempted to work constructively with the sector.

Civil Society Media has produced a comprehensive piece of research, the Charity Shop Survey for over 20 years. Yet no-one from the True and Fair Foundation has been in touch with David Ainsworth, online editor and author of the last two reports, or Gareth Jones editor of Charity Finance magazine, to discuss the matter.

As part of our commitment to the availability of balanced research about the sector we will be popping a copy of 2015 report, normally priced at £75, in the post to the foundation.