Intelligent Giving - Detailed charity profile - Comments

World Land Trust

Adam Rothwell — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:51:58 +0100

Thanks for your comments, John - and I'm glad you liked our annual report. We understand that not all charities have the resources to put together reports that are quite so detailed as ours, and we also understand that some charities might lose out if they are quite as frank about their failings as we are. That explains why we think that charities which score over 75% on our scale are doing pretty well.

As for whether it would be worthwhile for you to put in the effort to be so transparent - we think it definitely would. Over 100,000 people have read at least one of our charity profiles since our launch, and a recent survey showed that one-third of respondents changed their choice of charity as a result of visiting this site.

And as for linking to Guidestar - well, that's something we've got under review. We'll let you know the future of those links as soon as we've decided.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

guidestar

john A burton — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:29:53 +0100

It is now April, another three months have gone by, and guidestar is still out of date. Intelligent giving has just had a great write up in Third Sector, and has patted itself on the back for its reporting. Now the next step should be to listen to some ogf its supporters (like me) and ditch the links to Guidestar. The links give Guidestar credibility, which is undeserved. IG is doing a great job. In looking at their Report, I can see why they go 100%, but, the problem is, that if we were to do a report like this (which I am sure we could) it would only be to make IG happy -- and I am not sure that would be the best use of our resources. But maybe I'm wrong. If there was evidence that donors were using IG then I certainly would consider... and perhaps I've not spotted it, but is there analysis showing use of donors?

Whtever happens don't get disillusioned. You are doing a good job so far.

Sport Relief

Adam Rothwell — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:36:35 +0000

Yes - Comic Relief is the charity behind Sport Relief, so that's why there's no profile of Sport Relief on this site.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

Sport Relief?

Anonymous — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:57:40 +0000

Are these the same people as Sport Relief? Is there a writeup of Sport Relief?

There are some parallels though

Ginsters Dragon — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:33:22 +0000

Health and safety law in the context of industrial injury springs to mind. A good example is the battle over the degree of responsibility that mining companies should bear for 'vibration white finger'.

Don't shoot the messenger

I find myself agreeing with you LMC

Ginsters Dragon — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:30:01 +0000

Very well balanced post LMC. And rather than answering the $1m question I'll evade it (!), I don't know either.

Don't shoot the messenger

How far do you go?

LMC — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:50:35 +0000

I second the 'well done' to IG for going ahead and posting. At the risk of sounding immodest, I think that the question I will be asking at the end of this post is a vital one that is not raised frequently enough in ANY sector/area/situation. I don't have any answer to it - I'm not sure that there is one. But it's one that should be considered more often in my opinion.

First of all, I have no connection with Barnardos - professional or personal. I don't even give them money - they just don't happen to be one of my chosen out of the 190K + charities in the UK.

Second, I think it's important to note that the court cases referred to took place in late 1998 - just over 9 years ago. Not recently, as could be inferred from the original post.

From the second article that Adam linked: "A spokesman for the children's charity said it had been "devastated" by the case. .... He (John Tebbet, Barnardo's director of communication services) said the charity had worked closely with police to bring Dunne to justice and had introduced new measures to prevent such abuse happening again."

To me, that says that Barnardo's co-operated fully in bringing their ex-employee to justice. If they had been trying to 'cover up' then yes, that would have been a crime. The case took place before compulsory CRB checking was in place. The crimes themselves took place over 30 years ago, when no real checks at all were in place.

Without wishing to make light of the pain caused to any individuals who have suffered, most of the children in Barnardo's care at that time benefited - in pure economic terms, the good outweighed the bad. The fact that some suffered is still 'unacceptable'. However, Barnardo's have "paid" for their mistake in employing Dunne and entrusting vulnerable children to his care. Of course, it is a tragic shame that current standards/checking requirements were not in place 30 years ago, or even before then - however far you want to go back. No-one should ever have to go through what those children went through. Even one mistake is one too many. But it was a MISTAKE, not a crime. That mistake (along with too many others by too many other organisations) has been learned from - but even 10 years ago, when these court cases took place, checking of people working or volunteering with vulnerable children or adults was not legally mandatory.

I'm sure that Barnardo's responsibly applied the standards prevailing in the 1960s/70s in delivering their work. The fact that those standards were inadequate cannot be said to be entirely the charity's fault - that fault is shared equally with other children's charities, politicians, the legal system - and society as a whole.

None of the is intended to excuse what happened to those who suffered and nor would I expect it to be any comfort whatsoever.

However is it really fair to say, *over 30 years on* that "Barnardos is (still) bad" by reason of this?

And the $64,000 dollar question: How far *do* you go in applying today's standards, expectations and perceptions to events past - and how far back is it reasonable to do so?

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... nearly Vlad the Impaler

"Promoting transparency" will inevitably be uncomfortable

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:35:20 +0000

Without declaring a personal opinion on this story you won't be suprised to hear that I applaud IG for printing Mr De Carss comments and adding the appropriate links.

An organisation with IG's declared remit should not cave in to aggressively litigious charities whose only interest is in preventing free speach and reasonable discussion. I'm not suggesting that Barnado's fall into this category..... but others do.

Good decision Adam et al.

Barnardo's Comment

Adam Rothwell — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:49:40 +0000

The comment printed below refers to cases of child abuse perpetrated at a Barnardo's home during the 1960s and 1970s. Details can be found here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/241749.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/235618.stm

We published the comment after lengthy internal discussion. We do not believe that it gives a true picture of Barnardo's activities. However, to the best of our knowledge the comment appears accurate and is not obviously misleading. This is why we decided to publish it. But we'll let you decide what to make of it.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

BARNARDOS CRIMES

SEBASTIAN DE CARSS — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:29 +0000

TO WHOM IN QUESTION OF CHARITY RESEARCHERS.

I HAVE WON A VERY SUCCESSFULL CIVIL COURT CASE VERSE DR BARNARDOS WITH THE HELP OF LEGAL AID COSTING AROUND 4M, MILLLION POUNDS : THE CRIMES TOOK PLACE FROM 1966 to 1973 .BONFIRES CRIMES TO VULNERABLE CHILDREN IN CARE BY CHRISTIANS.

www.bbc.co.uk/news Barnardos sexual abuse. Ripon
www.bbc.co.uk/news Barnardos abuse.Ripon

I WA TAKEN INTO CARE BECOURSE I WAS A RETARTED AUSTIC SPASTIC IN A PLACE OF CHILD SLAVERY CAMP IN RIPON ENGLAND . CALLED THE OLD BISHOP'S PALACE. RIPOB UK.

SEBASTIAN J E DE CARSS

www.bbc.co.uk/news Sebastian de Carss / U
NICEF / THE BBC THE WEB BOX PETITIONS.

NONE ONE CAN GET AWAY FROM CRIMES AGAINST VULNERABLE CHILDREN ON CARE SYSTEM

YOUR SINCERELY SEBASTIAN DE CARSS

guidestar

john A burton — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:43:09 +0000

But my comment still stands -- why does IG continue to give links to Guidestar when it is so useless. There must be other links which are much more helpful to users CAF etc...

Double standards?!

Ginsters Dragon — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 13:25:17 +0000

I get censured/wrist slapped for stating perfectly reasonable opinions, yet somehow a post entitled 'Kill Guidestar' (sounds like incitement to me), is given the green light. Hey 'ho - as the sign off says.....

Don't shoot the messenger

Guidestar

Adam Rothwell — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:47:56 +0000

Much as we'd like to profile Guidestar, LMC, I'm afraid we can't - because it's too small. The Charity Commission states that it had an expenditure of only £69,000 last year - which means it doesn't have to write an annual report in the same way that bigger charities do.

As for the functionality of Guidestar, I have some sympathy with your view. Downloading information is now remarkably easy to do from the Charity Commission's own site. Larger charities' summary information returns (SIRs) are in particular always worth a look, I find...

Adam, Intelligent Giving

Kill Guidestar

LMC — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:39:19 +0000

The Charity Commission website is nearly as functional now - many charities' reports and accounts are downloadable and there is a function for us to add our own info. Which, at the time Guidestar was founded, were the only two things that Guidestar offered that CC didn't.

Oh, I tell a lie. Guidestar has forums which the CC doesn't. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (breathe) ha ha ha ha (contd. p94) - moderator information was completely out of date last time I tried to report a spam post on there.

IG review of Guidestar (charity # 1114615) please?

*eats popcorn - with wooden spoon (to prevent greasy fingers of course, what else?)*

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... nearly Vlad the Impaler

Annual Reports

john A burton — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:55:50 +0000

Again, points taken, but I still feel that as far as I am concerned the statutory annual report is what it says on the label. Perhaps it is not clear that we do also produce a pretty summary of the report, with pie charts, which goes to funders. They can then ask for the statutory report if they want the detail. Perhaps I should have made this clear earlier -- we are probably doing what most people want.

But I would like to return to a comment I made earlier. I think it is very important indeed that sites like Intelligent Giving are bang up to date. If a charity like ours is trying to be reactive and make the changes suggested, then we want to see this recognised a.s.a.p. Guidestar is still showing our 2005 accounts, and soon our 2007 accounts will be available. This degree of delay is unacceptable, and does not help charities. So IG, keep up to date, and keep up the good work.