Charities must change if they want us to trust them again
FOR too long, there has been an unhealthy veneration of big charities.
They have naively been portrayed as saintly entities – filled only with the virtuous, ministering to the needy.
A report from MPs this week condemned the “complacency and complicity” of charities in responding to endemic sexual abuse in the third sector.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise, since charity is big business and reputation is money.
War, chaos and poverty is the perfect arena for exploitation – just how widespread, we don’t yet know.
Organisations like Oxfam are by their nature so vast, so sprawled across the globe, they are virtually impossible to regulate effectively.
There are many decent people in the rank and file of charities who are relieved that the open secret is out and transparency is now being demanded.
Charity workers, just like the beneficiaries, are abused in the “boys’ club” culture.
Over the last two decades I have witnessed charities in action, in war zones, in emergency situations and in the deprivation of the third world.
I have been shown “agricultural projects” in the highlands of Africa, which amounted to a donation of a packet of carrot seeds to some poor family.
I have listened to a female “aid worker” in Lesbos complain about the “substandard” car she had to rent, as she clung to a latte and walked among refugees sleeping on the ground of the port.
But working for the same organisation was a female plumber from Glasgow, sweating in the heat to provide sanitation in a refugee camp. In the Kosovo crisis and in a Nairobi slum, I saw doctors and dentists go without sleep to tend to the sick.
And I have witnessed the relief when Oxfam transformed open sewers in refugee camps with essential sanitation.
Relief workers have risked, often lost, their lives to help.
But there are also too many of the privileged and unskilled, filling their time and CVs, while treating the chaos around them like an adventure holiday.
They are in every organisation, the good and the bad. And money goes to the organisation, invariably with whole departments dedicated to fundraising.
Larger organisations have the skills to make the best pitch – and too often spin – on funding applications for projects.
Grassroots projects and smaller charities, while making a tangible difference, don’t have the skills or resources to compete for grants and funding.
In the case of Oxfam and so many others, it’s not just the tawdry revelations that have dented their reputations but executive heavy structures, with too few on the ground and too many creaming off the top.
Charities in the UK employ more than one million people and command an annual income of more than £73billion. Governance and compliance is essential.
The falling public trust brought on by recent scandals may see some charities suffer but it will also force them to review how they do business.
Cynicism can be healthy and it won’t be the death knell for charities if they show good governance, transparency and compliance.
This report, and the scandals which were its catalyst, are drivers to rethink how we allow some charities to grow to be monoliths.
If they are too big to regulate effectively, then they are just too big.