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Little at Large

Third Sector, 12 May 2009

Paul Brannigan, chief executive of recycling social enterprise Kerbside. did he recycle his votes?

A new target for giving and the birth of 'governance creep'

In his book on responding to world poverty, The Life You Can Save, ethical philosopher Peter Singer sets a "realistic target" for "comfortably off" people in western countries of giving away 5 per cent of their income to reduce global poverty.

It's heartening that the Princeton professor is not deterred by the fate of previous efforts to peg charitable giving. The Giving Campaign's challenge to the British public to live on 99 per cent of their income in 2002 was met with a conspicuous silence and died a rapid death. Then there was Business in the Community's 3 per cent club for company giving, which was so exclusive that it became the per cent ("whatever you can manage, really") club.

Good luck, Pete.

- Some charities are positively laser-like in homing in on the exact demographic that will benefit from their services. The WRVS Strategy for the Future plan, for example, was based on "listening to people who are older now and will be in the future". The entire population of the UK, in other words.

- If social enterprise were a political party, it would be marginally more popular than the BNP and slightly less popular than the Labour Party. Actually, that's a mindless extrapolation from results of a by-election in Skircoat, a posh part of Halifax in West Yorkshire. Paul Brannigan, chief executive of recycling social enterprise Kerbside, decided to stand for election as a local enterprise candidate after funding for his organisation's household collections was stopped. He came a creditable fourth, with 6.6 per cent of the vote.

- Charities have all heard of the phenomenon 'mission creep', but apparently there is another form of creep that can sneak up on you.

It was revealed by Keith Hickey, chief executive of the Charity Finance Directors' Group, who worried delegates at a conference on the recession last week with the new malaise of "governance creep". Nobody quite knows what it is - but it can be fatal if you catch it.

Mathew Little is a freelance writer mathew.little@haymarket.com