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Recently I received an e-mail featuring a piece by Paul Ridout of Hunters Law on the effects on UK charities of growing inflation.

Whilst the economic situation certainly doesn’t favour charities, Paul’s assessment that we are entering a period of political and economic turmoil similar to the 1970s seems premature – and a bit alarmist. […]

This month saw the return of the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIOF)’s National Convention to an in-person event for the first time since the start of the coronavirus crisis in March 2020.

It was a great occasion at The Barbican, and I had the pleasure of chairing a discussion on whether or not small charities get […]

In our May blog, I talked about the importance of avoiding problems which would ultimately lead to a Charity Commission investigation.

This proved to be an appropriate subject for discussion in the light of the first speech given on 4 May by Orlando Fraser, the new Chairman of the Commission, after taking up his post.

In recent […]

Almost as frequent as the Charity Commission’s investigations into charities up and down the country is the advice given to Trustees from different quarters about what steps to take to ensure a Charity Commission investigation doesn’t happen.

Kids’ Company is the most frequently cited example of where procedures go wrong – but sad to say, there […]

Methods of giving are a regular topic for discussion, the more so as we enter the post-coronavirus era.

So what’s best for charities? Perhaps more to the point, what’s best for our donors?

The coronavirus crisis has shifted fundraising towards digital technologies. Lockdown and the general feeling we should not be attending large – or even small […]

Should grant-making trusts and foundations give more money to charities?

The UK benefits from more than 4,000 charitable foundations, many of which were set up centuries ago. Indeed, the concept of charitable foundations has its roots in ancient Greece, although they became more significant during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Some UK foundations have reserves running […]

Acceptance of gifts from dubious, or sometimes simply unpopular, sources is a perennial challenge facing charities.

Endowment of charitable projects by individuals who whose morality or source of wealth is open to criticism is nothing new. For example, how many schools are there in the UK endowed by, and named after, King Henry VIII – hardly […]

Earlier this week I was reading a sad story of a successful local charity not too far from Minerva’s Northamptonshire base faced with an uncertain future as a result of funding cuts.

Not an unusual scenario, given the coronavirus crisis and the economic state of the country.

But could it have been avoided?

A quick glance at the […]

Few people would deny the enormous effect which the coronavirus crisis has had on all our lives up to now, heightened by the uncertainty of what will happen next – new variants, new vaccines, relaxation or reinforcement of restrictions, to name but a few.

We experience this overall uncertainty in our day-to-day fundraising. During the early […]

Are young people connecting with charities?

In the 20th Century, young people’s involvement with charities was likely to consist largely of doing small-scale fundraising events – fun runs, laying a mile of pennies, etc – but few were expected to connect with charities, let alone wishing or being able to give to them.

The 21st Century has […]