Author Archives: carolinefiennes

UK charitable foundation staff and trustees are very white and very male. They’re also often senior in years, and pretty posh. None of those characteristics is necessarily a problem of itself, but (a) the homogeneity creates risk of lacking diversity … Continue reading →

A Which? Magazine-type reliable rating of a wide range of charities would indeed be helpful. Unfortunately it’s currently impossible. Most months, somebody contacts me saying that they’re setting up some website / app to rate loads of charities – to … Continue reading →

This webinar, given with the Campbell Collaboration and Porticus, is a great introduction to rigorous evidence in general, and specifically the rigorous evidence around ‘what works’ in institutional responses to child abuse. It is part of our work on that … Continue reading →

Most charities should not evaluate their own impact. Funders should stop asking them to evaluate themselves. For one thing, asking somebody to mark their own homework was never likely to be a good idea. This article explains the four very … Continue reading →

This article first published in Alliance Magazine. What aids and impedes donors using evidence to make their giving more effective? This question motivated a two researchers at the University of Birmingham to do a wide search of the academic and … Continue reading →

Giving Evidence today publishes research about Royal patronages of charities: what are they, who gets them, and do they help? This fits within our work of providing robust evidence so that charities and donors can be as effective as possible. In … Continue reading →

How are donors responding to the pandemic? What should they be doing? What will the long-term effects be on #philanthropy? Giving Evidence’s Director Caroline Fiennes discussed all this with The Business Of Giving in this interview. We also discussed Giving … Continue reading →

New project! Much attention is paid to what donors fund, but very little is paid to how they fund. Questions about how to fund include whether/when to give with restrictions, whether to give a few large grants vs. many smaller … Continue reading →

Clearly, communities and charities are under great strain at the moment. A vast number of people in the UK have less than one week’s savings. Charities are doing all manner of work, and the crisis is expected to cost them at least £4 billion(!) Please … Continue reading →