Our weekly round-up of outlandish and interesting information collected from the corners of the charity sector.
Greater transparency needed at think tanks?
Earlier this week the Centre for Policy Studies published a report accusing the UK’s largest charities of "concealing" income and called for greater transparency in annual accounts. Diary agrees completely with the transparency agenda. In fact all organisations receiving any money at all should have to declare exactly where it comes from, just to make it absolutely clear whether any money does come from public sources.
In the interests of transparency Diary went to have a look at the Centre for Policy Studies’ own accounts on its website.They weren't there.
However, Diary did discover that the independent think tank has close ties with the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. And that its advisory council includes a number of prominent Conservative politicians including Michael Fallon, Lord Griffiths of Fforestfah - and someone that readers might remember from knitting, pyjamas and his five-minute spell as minister for civil society, Brooks Newmark MP.
Charities come dancing
Congratulations not just to all those that made the New Year Honours list, but also to those lucky charity people that the BBC has selected to take part in The People’s Strictly later this year.
During the spring the BBC will broadcast four special episodes of its hit Saturday Night Show, but instead of featuring the usual D-list celebs looking to further their careers, a group of fundraisers and charity workers will be learning how to dance and raising money for Comic Relief.
As if there weren’t already enough reasons to work for a charity. Diary cannot wait.
New year's resolutions
Almost every charity with a mass participation or challenge event has used the first few days of January to encourage supporters to sign up for a fundraising event or abstain from something to raise money. Diary has itself come up with a few resolutions for the sector (other than to read Civil Society News every day because of course everyone already does that).
- Become more transparent – move into a glass building so that everyone can see what you are doing all the time.
- Do not take government funding without consulting widely with supporters and stakeholders (holding a vote if possible).
- Implement a social media sign-off system to ensure that all posts are checked by two members of the senior management team and two trustees before being sent. Then you might avoid getting into trouble with the Charity Commission and Electoral Commission.
