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

So Peta is at it again

The picture on this week's Diary is of an advert proposed by Peta for the side of Scottish ambulances.

The animal charity wrote to the Scottish Ambulance Service after it discovered ambulances had been recalibrated to deal with an increasing number of heavier casualties.

The Peta letter reads:

The adverts feature a nurse whose image would help revive anyone who’s feeling under the weather and read, “Lighten Your Load – Go Vegan. Vegans Are 10 to 20 Pounds Slimmer Than Meat-Eaters”.

So far as Diary can tell, it’s designed to annoy as many people as possible. Objectification. Check. Casual prejudice. Check. Controversialism for the sake of free publicity. Check.

Predictably, it’s sent the Scottish charity sector into a spiralling rage, although it doesn’t seem to have generated quite as much free outraged publicity as Peta were no doubt hunting for.

Diary has one or two questions about the messaging. Surely those who are pro-vegan are mostly also opposed to casual misogyny? (Although this is not aimed at vegans. It’s aimed at non-vegans who need to lose a few pounds. That’s a relatively large category in Scotland.)

In any case that subject has been pretty thoroughly covered, unlike the lady in the advert. But Diary has other objections.

First, while presumably it’s not per se inaccurate to say that vegans are “10 to 20 pounds slimmer than meta-eaters”, Diary does wonder at the vagueness of that statistic. I mean, which is it? Ten or 20? That’s a lot of ground to cover.

And if vegans are thinner, can we prove that veganness is the cause of svelteness? I mean, what if it's the other way round. It’s not impossible, is it, that being thin causes you to become vegan?

Okay, that’s fairly unlikely. But what if it’s correlation, not causation? Peta doesn’t actually specify whether the vegans are male or female.

Maybe it’s just that most vegans are women, and women weigh less than men.

Maybe vegans are younger than non-vegans and the weight gain is because teenagers weigh less than grannies.

Maybe veganism is a more difficult and expensive lifestyle which is easier to maintain if you’re not on a budget.

Maybe vegans are richer on average than non-vegans, and can afford gym membership.

Maybe vegans eat less because vegan food doesn’t taste as nice.

Maybe vegans are more likely to be teetotal, and it’s the lack of alcohol which is making the difference.

Maybe vegans are slimmer because reduced protein in the diet makes it hard to build muscle mass, and their body fat percentage is actually higher.

In short, Diary is not sure that the sexy nurse is slim because she’s vegan.

We’ve already got an FPS

Diary’s observations of the fundraising community, thus far during the ongoing crisis of public confidence, is that it doesn’t like to get bogged down in boring detail.

Fundamentally, it seems, fundraisers find regulation boring, and think discussion of it is particularly boring, and try to ignore it as much as possible.

So by far the most controversial proposal of the Etherington Review of fundraising regulation was not scrapping the current regulator. That passed by with barely a murmur – most fundraisers just muttered “Yes, yes, whatever,” and got back to their midmorning snack of hummus and celery.

No, what really generated anger was the idea of the FPS – the Fundraising Preference Service – which would prevent fundraisers contacting donors who didn’t want to be contacted.

Now it’s fair to say the FPS proposals are a bit low on detail (there isn’t any) and so arguments about it have whizzed about in unhelpful generalities.

But all of these have in any case forgotten the most important point, according to one of our commentators. There’s already an FPS, and has been for years.

That’s right. It’s the Fax Preference Service, and you can sign up to it to avoid receiving unwanted marketing faxes. Which is a bit of a relief, because Diary was getting worried about that frequent and intrusive form of marketing.

Have we reached peak guru?

So fundraising has too much of a guru culture, according to Ian MacQuillin, arch-prognosticator and defender extraordinaire of the right to ask.

So he may be onto something. But first let’s ask. What defines a guru? Surely one who is well-known in the sector? One given to advocating theories of effective fundraising in public at every opportunity? One whose wisdom is widely sought at conferences and events?

In short, Ian, it is just possible that there may be a shade of the pot calling the kettle black here?