 | Geoff Mulgan Founder, Demos think tank; Director, Young Foundation [1] | |||
 CHARITIES THINK OF THEMSELVES as poor and deprived - and many of them are. But they are also privileged - given special treatment compared to other organizations, including an exceptional position on tax.With those privileges should come responsibilities. Yet a few years ago charities had few obligations to account for what they did. There was little easily accessible data on what they did and little comparisons or analysis. “Some homeless charities were contributing to the problem”At one extreme, that led to the absurdity of institutions serving the very rich having charitable status (private schools and the Royal Opera House (see profile [1])). Related articles
Significantly, there was nowhere for donors to go to find out such things – whether their donations were making real changes, or just feeding charity in the bad meaning of the word: dealing with symptoms rather than causes. “There is now more information available about all types of organization”Fortunately there is now more information available about all types of organization in society – largely owing to the Internet. There is also the beginnings of better analysis so that people can make smarter judgements. On the web I can now find out volumes of data about my local school or police force, along with inspectors’ reports and audits. Although this scrutiny is sometimes resented by the professionals, and although there are important arguments to be had about distortion-by-statistic, the opening up of previously closed institutions has tended to raise standards and made them better servants of the public. The same will be true in the charity world. |