Are charities keeping too much of our cash?

THERE are some very dark corners in the charity industry (Mail). In my career as a parish minister, I was often approached by charities asking for my support. But when I asked for a sight of their accounts, that was usually the last I heard from them. Now a report by the True and Fair Foundation shows why they vanished: a fifth of our best-known charities use less than 50 per cent of the funds raised for ‘charitable activities’. In fact, more than 1,000 ‘charities’ spend less than half their cash on good work and 300 spend just 10 per cent, with the rest going to bloated workforces and obscene salaries at the top. Meanwhile, our excellent small and medium-sized charities are being shoved aside by the publicity machines of the aid industry’s big beasts both at home and (especially) abroad. It’s high time a light was shone on this sector so we can see how our money is spent, because too many charities appear to exist for the sake of their staff rather than their supposed beneficiaries.

Rev Dr JOHN CAMERON, St Andrews, Fife. The claim that one in five big charities give less than half of our donations to good causes (Mail) is based on a misguided analysis which gives a distorted view of how charities spend people’s donations. Charities raise funds in many ways. Many major charities generate a significant part of their income, sometimes the majority, from trading. Naturally there are costs relating to this, but the surplus generated is additional to the donated income and goes to the charitable cause. It’s a distortion to imply that charities aren’t spending public donations wisely. By trading, charities are adding to the money donated by the public and helping it go much further. People can scrutinise charities’ accounts themselves online and should feel able to donate with confidence this Christmas. HEIDI TRAVIS, Sue Ryder; SUE BIGGS, Royal Horticultural Society; ADRIAN BURDER, Dogs Trust; JAYNE GEORGE, Guide Dogs; SIMON GILLESPIE, British Heart Foundation;

and CAMPBELL ROBB, Shelter.