Trust in charities at record low after scandals
Charities have become increasingly important organisations in terms of underpinning social provision with the shrinking of the state. In our rush to apply private sector principles of efficiency and competition to the sector in order to “professionalise” it we seem to have forgotten something fundamental about the core rationale for the concept of charity. I wonder if smaller charities with neighbourhood/village foci, mutuals and cooperatives might not become increasingly popular in the light of the issues highlighted in the article below. They appeal to me on the basis of their local and highly accountable structures. I have learnt through years in local government that the closer to the punter we are the more “real” we have to be and ultimately the more good we can do. This is important because without some form of alternative social provision to the big or little state many rural communities face a significant and potentially worsening service deficit. The article itself tells us:
Public trust in charities in England and Wales has fallen to the lowest recorded level since monitoring began in 2005, in the wake of a series of high-profile scandals.
Research for the Charity Commission found that people were increasingly concerned about how charities spend their money and perceived aggressive fundraising techniques.
The main reason given for trusting charities less, cited by 33% of people questioned, was media coverage. Stories to have hit the headlines since the last survey, two years ago, include the collapse of Kid’s Company amid allegations of financial mismanagement, and the suicide of Olive Cooke, believed to have received almost 3,000 mailings from charities in a year.
Another controversy concerned Age UK’s deal to help market an E.ON energy tariff to older people, for which it received £6m in commission.
Such stories have contributed to charities’ trust rating declining to 57%, from 67% in 2014.