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Recent Posts
- What evidence to use at each stage of a programme
- Prince Andrew’s patronage of charities didn’t help
- Was Prince Andrew any good as a charity patron? We’re finding out
- What evidence exists about women & remand in the UK, and what does it say?
- Shifting the power in philanthropy: Types of initiative
- Most grant-makers don’t seem to know if they are effective
- More UK foundations are reporting the diversity of their staff and trustees
- Measuring children’s safety in organisations: Evaluating the strengths and limitations of currently-used measures
- Why the Fdn Practice Rating doesn’t assess the same foundations each year, and why that’s fine
- How diverse are UK foundations’ staff and boards?
- Surprising churn in the top UK foundations
- Why the system for charities applying to foundations is so expensive, and what can be done about it
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Author Archives: carolinefiennes
Application and reporting processes keep 3m children out of school
Avoidable waste from foundations’ reporting processes is ~£100m every year, enough to fund the whole of Barnardo’s or the British Red Cross. Another ~£150-250m is wasted in reporting to public sector funders, plus there’s plenty of avoidable waste in application … Continue reading
Posted in Admin costs, Effective giving, Impact & evaluation
Tagged admin, administration, application, apply, audit, book, charity, donation, effectiveness, efficiency, Fund-raising, Fundraising, giving circles, grant-makers, grant-making, grantmakers, group philanthropy, impact, inefficiency, inefficient, reporting, shared, wastage, waste
4 Comments
WaterAid: what are you thinking of?
Millions of Thames Water customers have this week received leaflets from WaterAid containing this: WaterAid should know better. This graph perpetuates the dangerous lie that charities’ spending on governance and fundraising is somehow separate from ‘work on charitable objectives’. They’re not: … Continue reading
Posted in Admin costs, Great charities
Tagged admin, administration, administrative, charity, donation, donor, donor education, effectiveness, efficiency, Fund-raising, Fundraising, giving, governance, water aid, wateraid
23 Comments
Who’s not applying themselves? Donors need to know
Writing and publishing a book which should improve charitable giving I figured made me a social entrepreneur. I needed money – all that editing and design doesn’t come cheap – so I approached UnLtd, the fund for social entrepreneurs set … Continue reading
Charities should have open, public AGMs
A publicly listed company must hold a meeting at least annually which any shareholder can attend. Often press and industry analysts attend too. The directors account for their decisions and performance, and any shareholder can ask a question. Thus the … Continue reading
Posted in Tax and governance, Uncategorized
5 Comments
The popular fetish of the small
The Economist this week has an article and data showing the folly of the popular affection for small companies. It shows that productivity* per employee is markedly higher in large companies than small ones for two reasons: employees in large … Continue reading
It Ain’t What You Give, It’s The Way That You Give It
It Ain’t What You Give, It’s The Way That You Give It: launches March 27th 2012 ‘The Freakonomics of the charity world – but with better cartoons’ – Martin Houghton-Brown, Chief Executive, Missing People ‘Great advice: inspiring, entertaining and much-needed’ – James … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Effective giving, Uncategorized
Tagged advice, book, charity, donation, donor, donor education, evaluation, Fundraising, giving, group philanthropy, impact, impact assessment, volunteer
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Government fund scores new low for charitable funding
Forty three failures for every success. Is the government’s Social Action Fund – which ostensibly helps charities – trying to challenge the National Lottery for startling low probabilities? It would be funny if only it weren’t tragic and irresponsible. And … Continue reading
Posted in Admin costs, Uncategorized
Tagged Cabinet Office, charity, Community Force, CommunityForce, donation, donor, Fund-raising, Fundraising, giving, government, impact, NatWest, philanthropy, Social Action Fund
1 Comment
Why it’s irresponsible to insist that trustees are unpaid
It’s rather trendy to suggest that the work of the voluntary (charity) sector is enhanced by the fact that trustees are unpaid. It’s bulls**t. You can tell by asking the simple question by which most important questions in this sector … Continue reading
Posted in Tax and governance
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What if etiquette and impact collide?
Perhaps it’s an occupational hazard. A friend or acquaintance asks for some advice or help with their charity. I’d like to help that friend… but the work or structure of the charity raises the alarm in my head. On one … Continue reading
Who should be Chair of the Charity Commission?
Dame Suzi Leather is standing down, so naturally we get to vote on who replaces her. Actually we don’t, but you can nominate people & we can all vote: right here. It needs to be somebody who: – REALLY understands … Continue reading
Posted in Tax and governance, Uncategorized
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