In May this year, a report by the Charity Commission for England and Wales (the independent regulator for England and Wales), states that public trust and confidence in charities has increased in the last three years.

When we are moved to give money after seeing images of human suffering in poverty and devastation, we will then have to decide which humanitarian charity we think will use our money most wisely.

Do we trust them to spend our money wisely? How will we know that our money will reach those who need it? How do they decide which country is more worthy of aid?

Statistics show that when our trust is measured as a mean score out of 10, it has increased from 6.3 in 2005 to 6.6 in 2008. And over a third of us would give charities a trust rating of eight out of ten saying that ‘charities make a positive difference to the cause they work for’ as the most important quality.

The report from the Charity Commission on 21 May 2008 also states “people have experienced or seen for themselves what a charity does or they believe in its cause”.

This latest report from the Charities Commission clearly shows the positive effect. “This increase in trust in charities is very good news for charities, their donors, beneficiaries and the public in general. The fact that more people are giving time and goods is also a clear sign of how much charities are valued and respected, and that people want to invest their time and effort in them.”

Trusting our chosen charity in order to give to the developing world is crucial if we are to give money, whether a large amount or not. Leigh Daynes, Head of Media Services at the British Red Cross believes this to be true.

“There are several factors that affect giving to the British Red Cross. Firstly it is our brand equity. Because our brand is largely understood to be first and foremost about emergency response, we have a relatively strong positioning in people’s minds on that type of operation so our fundraising appeals tend to be quite successful”.

It seems we are more willing to trust larger charities that are long standing and well-known and are therefore more likely to receive a donation due to a wider knowledge of the charity’s involvement and success at securing relief to the poor.

We often become more aware of what each humanitarian charity does through the media and through high profile campaigns. It may be due to having a much larger fundraising team compared to smaller organisations

“Inevitably success in terms of volume of donations is partly related to the capacity we have to raise those donations” says Leigh Daynes.

It seems that all charities are competing for donations for their chosen relief work. Humanitarian agencies often hope that their campaign or response in a humanitarian crisis will be the most prominent and worthwhile in terms of raising funds.

Click to the right to Leigh Daynes to find out how agencies react when a humanitarian crisis looms.............................

John Mitchell, Head of ALNAP (Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action knows only too well that agencies sometimes get it wrong when a humanitarian crisis occurs and believes they do not always operate as effectively as they should.

“In order for aid to be good, it has to be timely, appropriate and has to be accountable. For example, after the tsunami, agencies had a huge response from public. But there seemed to be a ‘laissez faire’ attitude to responding to need and each one has different capacities to do things well. Coordination is difficult.

The problem is that if a country lets in agencies, then sometimes there are too many agencies, there is too much money and they don’t have the internal capacity to spend money wisely.”

Using donations unwisely is a concern to one Media Relations Officer for the World Food Programme. He has just returned from the Congo where donations are desperately needed to help with the crisis there and often seemingly forgotten by the West.

“WFP has no guaranteed funds through the UN system or any other mechanism - we have to appeal for all our operations. Being 'in the news' is key to releasing funds. One major donor said to us recently that they were glad that we were putting out a press release on a particular operation because this is what they needed for their headquarters to unlock new funds for us. We then don't feel so neglected by the West and hope that we will receive fair amounts of donations."

 

Listen to John Mitchell from ALNAP, commenting on how he views the unfairness in the disparity of aid during a humanitarian crisis.
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In this competitive market place of agencies and allocation of donations, the public need to know that once the money has been received, it will be used fairly distributed and appropriate to need?

Transparency and accountability are two factors that will determine an aid agency’s success. Now they are required to put all their data on to their websites so that it is easy to access for donors and potential donors. Reports and evaluations from humanitarian aid appeals must also be recorded so that the agencies finances are transparent.

“It’s clearly important to people on the street that charities are open and transparent about how they operate, what they spend and how they fundraise.” (Suzi Leather, Charities Commission report)

John Mitchell concludes that he is “not sure whether evaluations are the right way for assessing impact. Sometimes the incentive is not there at the end of a programme - like it was at the beginning – as maybe the programme hasn’t worked or fully achieved its aims. Research may be required – maybe long term research; these things take time.”

 

 

UK Charities raise money for projects all over the world.

Information and training days are provided by their media teams to raise awareness of their charities and forthcoming campaigns. I went along to find out more...

 

HEAR FROM THREE ACTION AID VOLUNTEERS EXPLAINING WHY THEY SUPPORT AND TRUST THEIR CHOSEN CHARITY .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listen in to Leigh Daynes, Head of Media Services at the British Red Cross on how Charities compete for money.
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