Our weekly round-up of interesting and outlandish information, collected from the corners of the charity sector.
Secret alter egos, and where to find them
The board of the Charity Commission has long been a haven for historical writers. There’s William Shawcross, with his biography of the Queen Mother – a book so big that they’re thinking of hollowing out the middle and using it as a new royal yacht.
Then there’s Gwythian Prins, professional historian and author of an essay about why historians don’t like Europe, who was given a ticking off and a one-year extension to his contract for saying that charities shouldn’t campaign on the EU referendum while simultaneously campaigning on the EU referendum.
This week, the Commission finally announced three new appointments to the board. There were those who hoped they might appoint some people who’d worked for a voluntary sector organisation, but that wasn’t a priority. Apart from one person who’d managed grants for the Wellcome Trust, charity sector workers were considered supernumerary.
NCVO rushed out with the very faintest praise – its diplomatic way of saying “Not sure about this lot but we don’t want to say so”
The real question, though, is whether the regulator has beefed up its contingent of historical authors. New to the board is Laurie Benson, chief executive of Upnexxt Ltd – an expert in digital transformation.
The question is, does she have an alter ego: Laurie Benson, author of An Unsuitable Duchess, who writes “frisky and flirty Regency romances about men in boots and the women who fall for them”.
It’s hard to tell. Maybe. They do look a bit similar. But probably not, to be honest. A bit of research suggests the two women live in different countries.
Diary could of course solve this with a simple phone call to the Charity Commission. But where’s the fun in that? Isn’t squinting and guessing a much more entertaining idea?
Doctors of the World unite
Diary is very fond of the picture above – a new Christmas card produced by the charity Doctors of the World. If you get a Christmas card from this column (not likely, to be honest; Diary doesn’t really do Christmas) then this is the card you would get.
They're also, probably, quite accurate. After all, Jesus was born in occupied territory, with the threat of imminent armed conflict between foreign aggressors and religious fanatics, in a region which had repeatedly been levelled by violence. Not a place for three kings to be wandering around without armed guards.
The trouble is, what to say about them? Diary’s a big believer in the maxim that if you can’t say something snide, you should say nothing at all. And this is quite a good idea. We can think of only nice things.
What can charity leaders learn from Henry V?
Diary was surprised by this question, when it popped into the inbox last week. If you actually want to know, you can ask the Centre for Charity Effectiveness at Cass Business School, which is holding a two-part mythodrama session to examine it. You can visit their website to find out more and book, if you fancy. In the meantime, though, Diary has a few thoughts, based on what we know about Henry’s triumph at the Battle of Agincourt, and his success as a leader. Let’s hope you can use them at your charity.
First, if you want to become a good leader, why not use the Henry V method: have a dad who’s really rich, and preferably the boss. Worked for Donald Trump, after all – a self-made man who had to work hard after inheriting only $300m. (Still, today, statistically the best way to die a millionaire is to be born a millionaire.)
Second, blame France. If things are going really badly, invade France.
Third, if you find yourself in armed combat, always make sure you’re on the side of the guys with the better projectile weapons. Even if they’re outnumbered, hungry, and have dysentery.
But these are all sideshows to the real lesson of the Battle of Agincourt: make sure you invest in full cost recovery.
It’s an interesting and little known fact about the battle – if you’ll permit Diary a wholly unnecessary historical diversion – that the English ran out of arrows in the first half an hour. They’d already fired well over 100,000 at the French, though, and the rest of the day was just mopping up.
The English longbow, arguably, was the most effective weapon invented before the repeating rifle in the 19th century. It only had two problems. First, it took a decade to train a longbowman, and second, it took a week to make an arrow.
So if you want to succeed, better spend enough money on training and logistics. Or to put it another way: make sure you get proper investment in back office costs.
Is your charity like a sex cult?
Today brings news of an entertaining court battle – charity versus the grandchildren of a bloke who ran a sex cult called the Agapemonites which, if Diary’s command of ancient Greek is up to the job, means “those devoted to heavenly love”.
Anyway, the grandkids want to lay their hands on the £1m paid for the cult’s former headquarters by the Georgian Orthodox Church, but a judge has just ruled that the cash ought to go to charity.
Now, this presents an interesting conundrum. The founder’s original trust deed suggests he intended the cash to go to a Christian sex cult.
If Diary correctly understands the “cy-pres” legal principle (disclosure: Diary maybe doesn’t) then the charity which now gets that money is going to be the one which most closely resembles the one which shut down.
Leaves you caught in a bit of a cleft stick, doesn’t it? Your charity can in theory get its hands on all those pictures of the queen, but only if you admit that of all 400,000 charities in the UK, yours is the one to most closely resemble a Victorian sex cult.
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