Stille tag too, to judge by the lighter burden charities placed on my ’postie’ this December. I don’t have records to show but i am positive i have had considerably less charity mailshots this past month.
Then i read a piece in the London Metro last week highlighting how much harder fundraising is across the charity sector eg ‘4 in 10 reporting a drop in individual giving’. The article was based on a report by Baker Tilly who act for 175 charities:
http://www.bakertilly.co.uk/publications/Managing-charity-finances-through-uncertain-times.aspx
This against a background of cuts in government spending at home and abroad so as charities have a bigger gap to fill they have less funds to do so – a very vicious spiral indeed. And to judge by my mailbox, the drop in funds appears to make it harder for charities even to send out the begging letters which may have some hope of a return.
Which, as ever, makes me wonder why i still get thank-you letters with no envelope for another cheque to go in, and then a separate mailshot with an envelope. How can charities afford to do that? Is it that there are separate ‘departments’ handling different aspects? Then merge them! Use your IT capability, however basic, more intelligently so you can track all this. Now more than ever charities need to be lean and mean. If it is true- as a spokeman for the Charities Commission commented - that a third of respondents have considered merger or joint working, per an earlier blog for myriad reasons that seems a good idea to me, where charities are ploughing very similiar furrows.
Naturally i am an interested party, but i do feel the drop in giving is bad for general morale too, surely? Meaning that if you normally give £20 and now give only £5, you will feel better for still giving even if it is less. And the more people enabled to feel they are a decent person the more who will act decently, yes? I know, call me Pollyanna…