The actual cash figure given to charity by the top 500 UK companies is £400 million, or 0.236% of their profits of £169 billion.

According to the Evening Standard city editor Chris Blackhurst this average is a “shamefully low” figure for companies that like to pontificate about their corporate social responsibility, although some are much more generous than others with firms like Sainsbury’s (7%), Innocent (10%), Richer Sounds (10%), RAB Capital (4.77%). Icap (2.82%), and Marshall Wace (2.40%) leading the field and giants like Goldman Sachs International (0.32%), Schroders (0.21%), Merril Lynch Europe (0.19%), Morgan Stanley International (0.17%) and 3i (0.04%) trailing well behind.

In the past 10 years total charitable income in the UK has barely shifted, in real terms, yet in the same period the wealth of the 100 richest people on the Sunday Times Rich List has tripled.

Those eating at chain restaurants and wanting to take into account ethical criteria will be interested in the league table of 26 restaurant chains published by Ethical Consumer magazine.

This rates their owners by environmental, animal, people and political issues and calculates an “ethiscore” out of 20 for each one. These scores are as follows – the higher the score the more ethical the restaurant brand is considered. Continue reading →

The charity Sense About Science has attacked celebrities such as fashion designer Stella McCartney and actress Gwyneth Paltrow for making statements that could mislead.

Ms Paltrow claimed that she was avoiding cancer by “eating biological foods”, something dieticians say is not possible. And Ms McCartney’s comments that “lots of skin products use the same petrochemicals as the anti-freeze in you car” and that 60% of what you put on your skin is absorbed into the system “have been challenged by pharmacologists who say that absorption rates are around one per cent and that the propylene glycol used in some skin products and antifreeze is also used as a medical lubricant and as a solvent in food colourings, fragrance, and anti-bacterial lotions.

More information about celebrity scientific gaffes can be found at www.senseaboutscience.org.uk

A total of 56 free seminars aimed at charities and associations are offered at this year’s Charities and Associations Exhibition, CHASE, held at the Business Design Centre, Islington, February 26/27.

There are nine sessions under the fundraising stream, including Fundraising for Unpopular Causes, Legacy Marketing, Wealth Intelligence and Risk Management and five sessions under the trustee stream including Recruiting the Right Trustees, Good Governance and Public Benefit. There are also sessions on Gift Aid, Choosing the Right Charity Challenge, Data Protection, Online Campaigning and legal issues.

www.conferencehouse.co.uk/chase

Charity trustees are being offered a low cost subscription to Governance magazine, provided applications are received by January 31.

If so then up to five individuals at different addresses can receive the six issues for the total annual subscription price of £145, or £29 per individual. A special two year subscription on the same basis is available at £246, and those charities wanting more than five individuals mailed can pay £12 per extra individual for a one year subscription or £20 for a two year. Continue reading →

The continuing fall in the real value of the basic state pension, which is not currently linked to earnings, and the lack of any help for pensioners in the budget is worrying charities in the sector.

Mervyn Kohler at Help the Aged told Daily Telegraph: “There simply isn’t enough in the Chancellor’s statement to address the growing needs of an ageing population, or to tackle the fact that a fifth of pensioners currently line in poverty”. And Gordon Listman, Age Concern’s director general said: “It is extremely disappointing that the Government has yet again failed to bring forward the date for re-linking the state pension to earnings. Without quick intervention the real value of the basic state pension will continue to fall”.

Currently a single person will get a guaranteed weekly income of £124.05 from April 5, 2008 and couples £189.35.

High flying sportsmen in their 20’s are too concerned with blowing money, or snorting it, to be much use as givers to charities.

This is the view of Philip Beresford, author of the Sunday Times Rich List who told Third Sector magazine that such “collisions of having a lot of money with testosterone” are nevertheless invaluable as the “PR fronts” for charities. According to a recent article in the Daily Telegraph the number of 16-24 year olds prepared to admit taking cocaine Continue reading →

The over-charging of charity shops by councils to collect and then dispose of their waste costs each shop around £400 per annum.

This is the view of the Association of Charity Shops (ACS) which points out that councils are subject to the Controlled Waste Regulations which state that waste from charity shops is classified as household, rather that commercial waste and that councils may therefore only charge for collecting it, not also disposing of it (See Charity Matters, Issue 5, THE COUNCIL WASTE CON). Continue reading →

Age Concern reportedly spent £16.4 million on Hayday, its membership organisation for the over 50’s, to recruit 44,000 members against a target of 796,000.

These damaging figures were published in the latest issue of Private Eye, which also recorded that a director of one of the charity’s trading arms Tony Page has left Age Concern and been paid off with £815,000 over a dispute with senior management.