Some charities do not see the affluent middle class as their market, but the recent suicide of a friend has led Robert Ashton to reflect that sometimes they should.

Forgive me, but I'm feeling melancholic this week. You see I met a chap I'd not seen for a few years the other day. When I asked after his wife, he explained in a very matter of fact way that he'd found her hanging from the loft of their bungalow earlier this year.

I'm sorry if this shocks you, but suicide is like that; brutal, sudden and often unexpected.

I'll call my friend Alan, although that's not his real name. I first met him almost 25 years ago when we first did business together. He's ten years older than me and retired some time ago. He ran a successful company with his late wife. He handled sales and she the administration. There were a lovely couple.

Some three years ago he rang me to seek advice. Since selling up his wife had really begun to struggle with depression. The usual retirement delights of growing grandchildren and foreign holidays had failed to fill her life with the meaning she needed.

He didn't know who to ask for advice and knew that I had been living with depression for many years. "Where should I go for help?" He asked. It was a very good question. Of course they been to their GP and pills and counselling prescribed. But neither seemed to be helping. I gave him contact details of some people who'd helped me; he thanked me and that was that.

Until that is we met again last week and he told me his news. The suicide had come as a surprise, as indeed they usually do. After six months he was coming to terms with the tragedy and had recently started dating someone. Someone who from what he said has the ability to both recognise the horror or his recent experience with his need to move on.

Now let's reflect on his experience from a charity point of view. Perhaps from the moment of his wife's diagnosis (if not before) he needed help. Help he could easily, and would willingly have paid for. Help that many charities provide free of charge to those their funding encourages them to target. Or perhaps more accurately, people able to find their way through to the right people in the right organisations.

But he's a businessman and accustomed to purchasing clearly defined, professionally promoted services. At risk of appearing controversial, I don't see enough charities promoting their services in nearly enough a professional way.

That's not criticism, more perhaps a reflection of the fact that often their target audience is not the affluent middle class. You see statutory and grant funding is rarely intended to provide services to those able to afford to buy them. Yet as my friend discovered, private sector provision is fragmented and it's hard to find what you need to buy.

Federated organisations such as Relate and Cruse actually do have strong brands. Most people know what they do and hopefully, those able to pay do, so that more of those  who don't, can get help. But in my experience mental health is different. Even the large national organisations, at local level, lack the clarity of customer offer my friend and others like him seek.

That's a shame as increasingly, it will be the sale of service to the affluent that will subsidise support provided to the poor. Perhaps money spent on often futile fundraising might better be spent on marketing? There are certainly needs which people will pay to have met. Willingly in my view, once they know the 'profits' are reinvested in helping others.

As Alan reflected, "I'm a wealthy guy, but money can't buy me love."