Friday 14 June 2013

Charity awards and fundraising.




A good charity awards dinner last night (the Civil Society Media one). Third sector one is soon too. Held at the Grosvenor, but as the presenter said they have 2 good restaurants, and then the one in the underground car park we sat in! A good occasion, both to hear about the work of award winning charities and for networking with members.

However, do Civil Society need to review their nutrition policy?  Serving dinner so late and a very unhealthy sugar rich dessert served late (then chocolates and coffee! Shocking. And the CEO of Diabetes UK was sitting at our table).

And then the awards not ending till 11pm. Oh dear. Am I sounding grumpy and old? Still, my white DJ survived on its second outing. It gets another airing for my College Gaudy next week.

At least we get a glass or 2 of bubbly to start with. One of my Directors kindly sent me an article which shows that drinking champagne improves your memory. I knew it was good for you. So all those sandal wearers who “tut, tut” when I mention this subject:  Eat your hats, or preferably the sandals.

See:

A good chat with Alistair McLean, who heads the excellent Fundraising Standards Board, about fundraising complaints. As he said to me, the overwhelming fact is that charities handled all their complaints so well. Their members reported receiving 33,744 complaints; the overwhelming majority of these were satisfactorily resolved with only 14 escalated to Stage 2, and of those only 3 became Stage 3 complaints.

 This is something to celebrate. The sector may have complaints but they handle them well and should be proud of that achievement. We had a good discussion about how we should celebrate this low level of problems over fundraising, including chugging. I think we need to be more robust in defending ourselves from ignorant and bigoted attacks in reactionary newsprints on chugging. People who complain are nearly always misers who are embarrassed about being reminded how mean they are not donating.

I recently had a call from Shelter who contacted me to up my donation, which I made after being stopped by a charming chugger in Kings Cross. I was happy to do so. It was a silent protest at some of those members of PASC who hate Shelter's campaigning!

No comments: