Fundraising, confidentiality and fear

I have been involved in a blog debate on the Intelligent Giving website, which started out as a debate about chugging, but moved into more fundamental levels about fundraising, politics, disclosure and downright insults(!). I should probably apologise to one or two people for winding them up, but really, I was shocked by the regressive views being expressed. It amazes me how defensive professional fundraisers seem to be, and amazes me how so many of them believe that by expressing their views on a blog could endanger their job. We'll come back to that in a minute, but I would first like to say something about fundraising.

I've done fundraising for years: 25 years ago I was working in a community centre in camden that would have gone under if we hadn't raised money after the council had cut our funds, and in addition we successfully raised funds for a new family centre for local kids - many of whom were living in "homeless families accommodation" on the estate. I didn't know anything about fundraising at the time, but received excellent advice from Zena Brabazon, who at the time was Chief Officer of Elfrida Rathbone (Camden), who advised me to look at my users in the way that made them the most needy, and "sell" them to funders, donors, companies, or whoever would give us money. She told me to separate the act of fundraising from the act of providing the service: that one thing was worth doing to support the other. But it had no other saving grace.

Since then I have raised millions of pounds for several charities: some who I worked for, some who I was on the management committee of, some as a consultant, and some as a favour. In every case I never felt I was doing a particularly honourable thing, nor a pretty awful thing, but after doing it, I'd often feel like I needed a wash. If people want to give money to charity, good. I strongly believe that giving money to charities is a good thing, and getting the information about charities out so that people can give money (and open and honest information as Intelligent Giving always say) is an honourable thing too.

But fundraising itself is an act of professional marketing, no different to marketing anything else, be it a fizzy drink that causes diabetes, a car that pollutes the atmosphere or a high interest loan that forces someone into poverty. OK I admit that in this day and age its probably the only way some charities survive, but really, in an ideal world is that how you want to live?

When I suggested on the IG website I would prefer a system where an elected government gave state funds (our taxes) to good causes i was accused of being a communist - which is completely bizarre - in that I was 'restricting choice'. Goodness knows how this would prevent people from giving to charities, and of course we have so much choice NOW on how our taxes are spent: on arms for example, on Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley for example... I personally believe in an elected democratic government spending my taxes on worthwhile things. Apparently, these days this makes me a dangerous revolutionary.

The other issue was confidentiality. I was suspicious about posters on the Blog not using their names, but using their aliases. Who are you? I asked. What are your motivations for supporting chugging? I was deeply suspicious they were people working for a professional chugging outfit (yes these guys really exist - they take approximately the first year -often more- of all the money you sign up for with whatever charity they are working for), and were therefore hardly speaking from a neutral viewpoint. But, assuming they were telling the truth (I have no reason to assume otherwise) they were not. They were fundraisers working for a charity, afraid to reveal their names in case they got in trouble.

Apart from the issue of using employers' time (which they didn't seem to be, posting in evenings) I am seriously shocked at this. People working for charities actually scared to reveal their names on a blog discussing charities and fundraising - and they are not even arguing a line that their charities would disapprove of. To propose another 'dangerous socialist' idea: why don't these guys join a trade union? And if there really ARE charities out there where people work in such bad working conditions they aren't even allowed to argue with me on an open discussion board about charity issues - I for one want to know who they are working for - because I for one won't be donating to those bastards.

A new blog for new issues

This blog is entirely for voluntary and community sector issues. I will use it entirely to discuss issues of concern relating to the voluntary and community sector, in relation to stuff I am working on, things I have read elsewhere and policy developments.

For example, thew first two blogs, following this introductory message, will feature fundraising, and the Building Our Futures project which I am currently working on (see the Building Our Futures page on the toosh website.)