Tuesday 21 November 2006

RECENT PRESS COVERAGE has misrepresented Intelligent Giving’s views on the BBC Children in Need Appeal. An article in The Times of 15 November claimed that Intelligent Giving wanted donors to ‘boycott’ the Appeal, and Sir Terry Wogan criticized the website in the Sunday Telegraph (19 November), claiming that it was waging a ‘contemptible’ campaign to ‘undermine trust’ in the BBC’s charity.

Intelligent Giving Editor David Pitchford says, “These are serious allegations and they are very misleading. Our website is all about helping donors to give happily and with confidence.

“Our article advised donors that they could do better than give to a grant-giving charity like Children in Need - but we also think that Pudsey does a lot of good work. If you’re prepared to put in the effort to find a good local children’s charity, you should give to it, because then your money will go further. But if you don’t have the time for that research, then giving to Children in Need is a lot better than giving nothing at all.”

“We want donors to have as much control over where their money is spent as possible,” Pitchford says. “If you give to Pudsey, then you lose a lot of that. Your money might be spent on projects you don’t want to support, and more will be spent on administration.”

“Children in Need could also report on its activities more diligently - and we were justified in criticising this. At the moment, it isn’t very open when it comes to disclosing how it monitors the use of its cash, and one of the legal documents it submitted to the Charity Commission last year bore a closer resemblance to fiction than fact. But even though we’ve got reservations, we still think Children in Need is a major force for good.”

He added: “We would point out that Children in Need has not refuted any of the detailed criticisms we made of its reporting.”

Ends

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