How to make a difference

John Humphrys
Journalist and founder of the Kitchen Table Charities Trust [1]

CHARITIES EMPLOY nearly 600,000 paid workers and another 3m volunteers. Their income has risen sharply in the past few years and is now more than £26bn. There are 6,000 new charities registered every year.

What's wrong with that? The statistics surely tell a story of unqualified success – a tribute to the generosity of this great nation. Well, yes and no.

There are certainly generous people. The odds are, dear reader, that you are one of them. But your generosity is dwarfed by one donor in particular: the government.

The best of the charities know where the greatest need is.

State funding now accounts for a bigger slice of the total income of British charities than voluntary donations – and by a hefty margin. This raises serious – and in some ways troubling – questions. First, though, the positive side:

Charities tend to spend money more efficiently than governments and there is less risk of corruption. If the government gives a million to Save the Children (profile [2]) or Christian Aid (profile [2]) it’s not likely to end up in an African politician’s Swiss bank account or paying for a container full of AK 47s and rocket launchers. And the best of the charities know where the greatest need is.

The danger of government taking over the responsibility for funding charities is that we end up feeling we needn’t bother. True, it’s still our money that is given (why do we persist in talking about ‘government money’ when there’s no such thing?) but it is no longer our decision. It is made for us.

It’s almost embarrassing to think you can change a life for the price of a bottle of plonk.

In spite of this mass of government money, we can still each make a difference. In Tanzania, it costs a derisory £4 for two uniforms and a few pens and exercise books, without which the child cannot go to primary school. It’s almost embarrassing to think you can change a life for the price of a bottle of plonk.

There's obviously a huge need for the big charities with government funding. But my own view - as you might expect from the founder of the Kitchen Table Charities Trust - is that you get many more bangs for your buck if you support small charities with minimal overheads. The closer the charity to the people it's trying to help, the better. So look for a charity that does what you want it to do and then check that it really needs your money - and won't spend it on meeting Government targets or on pointless bureaucracy.

> More expert opinions [2]
> Charity listings: Experts' Choices [2]