Fewer people think charities are regulated effectively, says report

Published by the Charity Commission today, the paper says the proportion of respondents who think charities in England and Wales are effectively or fairly effectively regulated has fallen six points in two years

The proportion of people who think that charities are regulated effectively has fallen over the past two years, research published by the Charity Commission has found.

Research carried out for the regulator by the polling company Populus discovered that the proportion of people who thought charities in England and Wales are regulated very effectively or fairly effectively was down from 64 per cent in 2015 to 58 per cent this year.

Although the proportion of people who felt charities were regulated fairly increased, in effect, from 44 per cent in 2015 to 51 per cent this year, the proportion who felt the sector was regulated very effectively dropped sharply from 20 per cent in 2015 to only 7 per cent this year.

The research, published by the commission today, found that the proportion of people who said charities were not regulated very effectively increased from 8 per cent in 2015 to 16 per cent this year.

The proportion who said they felt charities were regulated “not at all effectively” rose by one percentage point on 2015 to 5 per cent this year. The remainder said they did not know.

The findings are based on 1,002 telephone interviews with a representative sample of members of the public, a further 1,015 online interviews with senior staff or trustees from charities in England and Wales, plus 26 in-depth telephone interviews with charities, government officials, umbrella bodies and professional advisers. All the research was carried out between February and April.

Despite a fall in public confidence in charity regulation, stakeholders interviewed for the study said that charities in England and Wales were regulated effectively overall.

“They think it compares favourably on an international scale, arguing that the England and Wales system is an example for other countries to follow,” the report on the findings says. “They have an awareness of and sympathy for the environment that the Charity Commission operates within, referring to a lack of resources and the large number of charities under its remit.”

The survey found that awareness of the Charity Commission had risen: 61 per cent of respondents this year said they had heard of the regulator, compared with 47 per cent in 2015.

Researchers found what they called a “significant increase” in the proportion of people who said they or their close family or friends had benefited or used the services of a charity, or received support from one.

The proportion of people who said they or their close family or friends had used a charity’s services went up from 19 per cent in 2015 to 31 per cent this year, and the percentage who said they or their close family or friends had received money, support or help from a charity was up by six percentage points to 16 per cent over the course of two years.

The report says that 17 per cent of the public had a concern about a charity in the past year, but more than half – 58 per cent – did not take any action.

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Almost 500 people access the Fundraising Preference Service hours after launch

According to the Fundraising Regulator, 484 suppression requests were made by 10.30am today, five and a half hours after the preference service began operating

Almost 500 requests to stop charities contacting people were made in the first few hours after the Fundraising Preference Service went live this morning.

At a reception this morning to mark the launch of the FPS and the first anniversary of the creation of the Fundraising Regulator, Jenny Williams, who sits on the board of the regulator, revealed that 484 suppression requests had already been made since it was launched at 5am today.

The FPS, which will be run by the regulator, will allow people to block all phone, email, direct mail and text contact from specific charities in groups of up to three at a time.

Speaking at 10.30 this morning, Williams said: “As of about an hour ago we already had 484 suppression requests since the website and system went live earlier on this morning, so the FPS is well and truly under way. This is a tremendous achievement on behalf of the team.”

People who want to block communications from a particular charity will be able to log on to the website or call the telephone number, then choose a charity and the communication channels they wish to block.

The charity will then receive a notification from the regulator and will log on to its own portal on the website to get the person’s information.

Williams said that 641 charities already had portals on the system and more would be joining shortly.

She said the regulator would carry out a formal review of the system in 12 to 18 months’ time.

“We’ve designed the FPS to be flexible,” she said. “If necessary we can increase its capacity, but we hope the wider efforts to improve fundraising standards and the impact of the General Data Protection Regulation will mean there’s much less demand for services over time.”

Stephen Dunmore, chief executive of the Fundraising Regulator, said the FPS set-up and running costs for its first year were likely to be significantly lower than predicted a year ago.

In August last year, the regulator predicted those costs would be £750,000, including £250,000 for set-up.

But Dunmore said today that the set-up costs had been £250,000 and the predicted first-year running costs would be £450,000. He said he expected the actual figure to be lower than that because the regulator was encouraging FPS users to use the website rather than the telephone line, which is more expensive to provide.

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Culture change needed in volunteer management to attract more people, says NCVO manager

Kristen Stephenson, volunteer development manager at the umbrella body, says charities should allow volunteers greater flexibility in how and when they offer their time

A broad culture change in volunteer management is needed in order to attract more volunteers, Kristen Stephenson, a volunteer development manager at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations has said.

Speaking at a joint event held by the NCVO and the Office for National Statistics on trends in volunteering in central London today, Stephenson said charities needed to allow volunteers greater flexibility in how and when they volunteered in order to keep them engaged.

Many charities failed to take into account the fact that people’s engagement was an ongoing journey that depended on what else was happening in their lives, heard delegates at the event, which was held as part of National Volunteers’ Week. 

For example, they might volunteer as students, then less when they find full time work or have children, but then get re-engaged through children’s groups, she said.

“There’s a broader culture change that’s needed in terms of volunteer management, so that we create a culture of volunteering where people are able to volunteer in different stages of our lives and we can build in the flexibility and also the pathways to allow people to do that and support them on this journey,” said Stephenson.

She also said that organisations needed to embrace the fact that volunteers might have a more fluid relationship with them because people have become more focused on causes than organisations.

“It might mean we might need to change our mentality a bit from one that recruits volunteers to do a very specific role that we define, to one where we enable people to give their time and talent,” she said.

“So is might be that we are seen as volunteer enablers rather than volunteer managers in the future.”

She said charities should look to sharing volunteers and enabling them to move between organisations easily rather than thinking about protecting or keeping them loyal.

Matthew Hill, a senior researcher at the NCVO, agreed and said the sector needed to be careful about the way in which it viewed time as a barrier to volunteering.

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Many studies had shown that those who were busiest, for example, in full-time jobs and caring for children, tended to volunteer more, he said.

“We should be honest about what does it really tell us when people say they don’t have enough time to volunteer,” he said, pointing to data shared earlier in the session by Chris Payne, a  senior research officer at the Office for National Statistics, which showed that non-volunteers tended to consume more mass media.

“I think we all know mass media means boxsets, which we watch instead of volunteering,” Hill said,

“So I think we’ve got to be realistic that it’s not that people don’t have time to volunteer, it’s more the data shows that people are choosing to do other things with their time rather than volunteering.”

He said it often was not the overall amount of time that was needed to volunteer that presented a barrier by the idea of a regular, open-ended commitment that tended to deter people, so more flexible opportunities needed to be offered.

Stephenson said one solution was to design volunteering to fit around people’s lives – pointing to Projects such as Good Gym, where people go running but stop off to do activities for their communities along the way.

“In those roles the volunteering is almost secondary – it’s about how it fits into their lifestyle,” she said.

“If we want people to choose volunteering over watching a boxset we need to think about how we make it easier and how we really highlight what the other selling points are of that activity.”

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Young Gloucestershire receives £10,000 to help young people get into work

Young Gloucestershire has received £10,000 to help young people from across the country to get into work.Gloucestershire Freemasons, Tim Henderson-Ross and Derek Gunningham, visited a group of young people undergoing a 12-week work-development programme.  The group of under-25’s, all currently not-in-work, were completing a community project in Quedgeley to transform a children’s play area, but downed tools to receive their visitors and explain how the project works.

The group discussed the skills they were developing through the programme and their hopes for the future with the Freemasons who were hosted by Young Gloucestershire’s youth-worker, Tristam Meyrick. Tristam has worked alongside the young people while arranging a series of two-week work placements.

Ben Kittner (aged 24) currently taking part in Young Gloucestershire’s programme, said:

The Freemasons were genuinely interested in what we were working on and were keen to hear our views and our hopes for the future.  I said that working with Young Gloucestershire has really built my confidence and this community project has helped me see that I do have skills an employer would be looking for.

Young Gloucestershire Fundraising Manager, Karl Gwilliam, said:

“This generous, and vital, support from the Freemasons will enable YG to continue its work-based training to disadvantaged young people.  This donation allows us to continue a successful mentoring programme, matching young people to volunteers from the business community who teach young people the skills only gained from being in work.”

Tim Henderson-Ross Head of Gloucestershire Freemasons, said: “We were very impressed with the determination of the young people we met to get into the workforce. Young Gloucestershire are doing an excellent job and we are very pleased to be able to help them.”

About Young Gloucestershire

Young Gloucestershire is a countywide charity that supports disadvantaged young people (aged 11-25) who are facing challenges in their lives.The charity provides training & development, practical support and community involvement to young people across Gloucestershire.

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Groundwork receives grant to train unemployed people to restore goods for charities

Groundwork London has received £30,000 to train unemployed people in repairing domestic appliances to be sold by charities.

The charity’s REWORK project restores furniture and white goods at one of the UK’s best-equipped domestic appliance repair workshops. Through the project, items that would be sent to landfill are returned to full working order and given a new lease of life.

The workshop, based at the Smugglers Way waste transfer station in Wandsworth, employs people who have been on long-term job seekers allowance and trains them in electrical engineering and maintenance.

Last year, the project’s 29 paid trainees refurbished and sold over 4,500 domestic appliances and 2,700 items of furniture.  The repaired items are then provided for resale through charity shops in London and across the country.

London Freemason, David Lawrence, visited the project to see the apprentices in action:

“We’re very pleased to be able to support this excellent scheme which provides practical training for long-term unemployed people, helps the environment and provides a cheap source of refurbished appliance for charities to sell.”

Ben Coles, director at Groundwork London, said:

“We’re very grateful to London Freemasons for their generous grant which will help us continue giving people the skills to find jobs in the capital’s growing retrofit sector. The project is a great example of Groundwork London tackling unemployment while protecting the environment.”

Groundwork London

Groundwork London is a social and environmental regeneration charity that works with communities across the UK. The charity supports them to create better places, live and work in a greener, more sustainable way and to improve their economic prospects.

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