Our weekly round-up of interesting and outlandish information, collected from the corners of the charity sector.

Our sense of humour has not desserted us

So this week, Society Diary, in its role as a crucial barometer of the zeitgeist, is addressing only about things which begin with C – cakes, Camila Batmanghelidjh, cricket and street fundraisers.

Cakes first, though. Over on Social Charity Spy, our illustrious sister column, they are also publishing sumptuous images of gateaux and whatever, because it’s Great British Bake Off week, and that means a focus on do-gooding with pudding.

We start with some news, cooked up by the Charities Aid Foundation, that apparently bake sales in Great Britain “helped raise an estimated £185m for charities last year”.

That’s a heap of dough. A big figure, with a lot of bagels in it.

Apparently 8 per cent of people have baked for charity, and 30 per cent of people have bought from a bake sale. Dough-based activities are being rolled out across the country. Charities are attempting to whip up their supporters into a self-raising frenzy.

Diary nicked that last pun off CAF, by the way, because this column is happy to steal freely from others – it doesn’t know right from meringue.

Picture imperfect

Just when you think it can’t get any worse for Camila Batmanghelidjh, it does. Not only is she no longer chief executive of Kids Company, but the National Portrait Gallery is apparently thinking of taking her picture down. Talk about kicking someone when they’re down.

How to avoid fundraisers

Things have been pretty bad for a while now in the fundraising world, but you know that things are going badly when a national newspaper feels inclined to publish a long article containing advice on how to avoid fundraisers in the street, as Metro did the other day. (Metro used the C-word, by the way, but Diary will not stoop to obscenity.)

The advice was pretty revolutionary, though. Pretend to be foreign, cross the road, wear big headphones and pretend to be deaf. Genius. They missed out “stick your underpants on your head and two pencils up your nose and pretend to be mad” – but maybe it was done in too much of a hurry to think up such an in-depth plan.

Cricket without Boundaries

Diary, as you’ve probably worked out by now, has a passing fancy for our summer sport, and so would like to draw your attention to a fine charity called Cricket Without Boundaries.

Anyway, Diary hears that the Australian cricket team’s first innings at Trent Bridge was played in their honour.