Trust me, I'm a charity
The UK's foremost reason for lacking trust in charities is not knowing where the money's going, but whether that's stopped us from giving to them is another matter.
In May 2008, a Charity Commission survey on public trust revealed that the top answer for trusting a charity less with 26 per cent of people agreeing, was because they didn't know how it spent its money.
The Commission's head of news Sarah Miller says the results show donors want more transparency. "Overwhelmingly, people said it was really important to them to know that a charity accounted for what they did, showed what they achieved in their annual report every year."
"It's very much about personal contact. Seeing is believing. If you've seen a charity in action you are much more likely to trust it."
Months earlier, the not-for-profit research consultancy nfp Synergy had also conducted its own study on trust. It found 71 per cent of people were sceptical about how much charities actually spend on the cause, with 63 per cent concerned about the amount going on admin.
Senior researcher at nfp Synergy Patrick Brennan thinks more effective communication is needed between charities and donors. "Charities spend a lot less on admin and fundraising than people think."
Although the two pieces of research echo each other on concerns over transparency, they contradict each other on one major factor - how far tarnished the UK's trust in charities actually is.
The Charity Commission's results found that people's overall trust has increased. The 1,200 people asked placed it at an average value of 6.6 out of ten in 2008 up from 6.3 the last time the survey was done in 2005. Ms Miller states this is "really good news".
And it is good news for the Commission, which has legal responsibility for increasing public confidence in charities as its first objective under the Charities Act 2006.
But eight months before, nfp Synergy's survey found that only 42 per cent of people had "quite a lot" or "a great deal" of trust in charities, a fall by nine percentage points since September 2006 when it was 51 per cent.
Regardless of the conflicting results, Mr Brennan whose organisation has been tracking public attitudes towards charities for more than 10 years, was quick to dispute that a lack of trust has caused giving to stagnate.
"There's not much of a correlation between a fall in trust, or a peak, and giving (...) trust has only recently slipped and we have to wait and see for the long term impact."
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