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

Fat cats and fundraisers

Fundraisers can breathe a sigh of relief – fundraising methods don’t affect the public’s levels of trust in charities, at least according to today’s report by NPC. People still don’t like being pressured for money, but for some reason the public is more concerned about what charities do with the money once it has been raised – go figure.

But what really caught Diary’s eye was the comment NPC included in its report from a disgruntled member of the public, who said that all charities do is “feed fat cats”. Outrageous. As reported last week the PDSA runs very successful pet dieting programme, so that’s at least one charity encouraging the very opposite of feeding fat felines.

Attic fun

Surely the regular All Party Parliamentary Group on the Voluntary Sector sessions are etched on the minds of every MP (or at least noted in their email calendars)? Sadly it appears not, for the first meeting of the year, about small ‘the-lifeblood-of-the-sector’ charities, was unceremoniously bumped by an hour and moved from the relative comfort of committee room 15 to the somewhat less salubrious attic, or room 21.

Attendees were assured that it was not that the sector had been forgotten, or indeed shoved into the attic, but that MPs have been frantically booking rooms to finish up select committee business before the end of the Parliament, and that three other sessions were similarly disrupted that afternoon.

Nicest job in Britain

A blogger named Luke Cameron is to be employed in a job that will see him volunteer at a different charity each week for a year, while being paid by his employer.

He has been appointed to the prestigious position of 'national philanthropy manager' for a consultancy company that Diary forgets the name of - which doesn't really matter as the whole exercise is definitely not a PR stunt.

All 45 (is a year not 52? That’s a lengthy seven weeks’ holiday he’s getting there) slots have already been filled.