I am no admirer of Spoon - it looked good, I joined, I was disappointed I left.

However, as noted by Lawrence, if sportsmen getting together for a night out, raise a little money for good causes, what is the problem ?

The only issue is that we have only one word for various degrees of "efficiency" - and I guess, to be meaningful, "efficiency" would have to be independently verified.

Gold, Silver, Bronze, Tin and Paper Charities (90%, 80%, 70, 50%, 25% ?)

Really good, good, ok, fair, pretty poor ?

I think Spoon being categorised as a Paper Charity would be reasonably accurate.

Let's face it, if the fundraisers at Wooden Spoon had been employed in the private sector they would have been fired long ago. For too long the charity sector has hidden behind the facade of "we're working towards a good cause" as a reason to be spectacularly inefficient. Charities such as Wooden Spoon need to face up to the competitive world we live in and adapt their fundraising techniques. They obviously have a lot of supporters out there (many of whom have been upset by this article) so they should be able to raise funds effectively and in the long term they will come out of this a better charity, who can help more people.

For the record I think part of the blame for charities becoming inefficient lies with the supporters, if you're that much of a supporter of your charity the least you can do is once a year glance over their annual report and see if their is any thing dodgy going on, it doesn't take much of your time and by asking questions your charity will become a more efficient and effective organisation.

9 full time staff seems like a massive amount for a funder.
There are some funders who have large budgets who get by with just a couple of staff.
End delivery organisations needing that level of staffing I can easily understand, working one to one with clients - giving practical help, visiting clients and so on.
But 9 full time staff seems to be....high.
Alright, it seems very high.

Exactly how much work needs doing to read applications, prepare recommendations to trustees, ask for more information from the charities and visit the larger grant applicants?
Have I missed some important work that requires the other 7 or 8 full timers?

Or are the rest of the staff doing the work of organising all the events?

Please, can someone make it clear why so many staff. Just leaving it as 'employs 9 full time staff' invites criticism when perhaps none is needed.

Martin

As an 'independent, not-for-profit' organisation, it's disappointing to see Intelligent Giving playing politics with charity and seeking cheap headlines for its creators yet again. Mr Pitchford's loaded comments do no favours to the perception that Intelligent Giving is independent. To compare Wooden Spoon to Comic Relief is totally misleading. And to say it has high 'admin' costs is laughable - Wooden Spoon employs 9 full time staff. This unjustified criticism of a charity that does so much for children is a huge affront to those who have worked so hard to make others' lives better - Intelligent Giving should be ashamed of this self-serving move and must realise that it has not only damaged besmirched a massive fundraiser, but itself too.

Some of us have done fundraising events before - meals, days out and so on.
Usually negotiating with the service provider for a discount or adding something to the ticket price per person to get extra funds for the charity.
ie meal £50 cost for the charity, tickets sold for £60+.
Usually more than covers any spare places or after dinner speaker, and gives a chunk to the charity even before people start donating or taking part in raffles.
Not seen or been to a properly managed event in 20 years I've been going where the organisation made a loss on the event. A combination of keeping costs down and marking up the price presumably. Its what I've done when I've organised it myself.

I have to ask - why are the fundraising costs so high compared to others of us (often much smaller groups without major sport in common) doing presumably the same sort of events?

Martin

Adam
Thanks for your comments. A couple of points I'd like to raise in response.

I'm all for benchmarking but let's keep it in perspective. To make a comparison between Spoon and a bunch of City highfliers, fresh from receiving their bonuses, is a bit rich. Full credit to ARK but we're just not in that league. Few people/charities are.

Secondly, to use Comic Relief and Pudsey as comparisons is again a little unfair. How many millions of people turn on the TV to watch tens or even a hundred stars contributing their time (foc I presume) for the purposes of entertainment? Rugby's following is considerably smaller and therefore the charity linked to that sport has even less support. As a consequence the number of people giving to that charity is a fraction of a national, TV led campaign.

Let's be honest, charities always have a tough time trying to be innovative, to maintain the public interest and to remain in the public eye. Are you suggesting that The Spoon should be yet another charity collecting envelop through the door of an even more stretched UK household or perhaps they should collect old clothes or mobiles, or God help us, employ a bunch of Chuggers? All of these ideas have been exhausted and the British public are fed up with these approaches (but still give, fortunately) and it's great to see charities trying something different. Perhaps when a charity is being innovative it should be regarded in a different way.

I fear we are in danger of setting our benchmarking on somewhat flawed principles. As a mathematician I know that it's easy enough to prove just about anything through selective analysis. Without doubt the better comparison for charities is the proportion of administration overhead as a percentage of fund raising. Even so, this can be flawed and I understand the desire to find other measures. However, such research should always carry a health warning, as journalists just love statistics and are more than happy to be selective in their reporting.

In this case, the press coverage that I've seen has badly discredited Spoon and that can not have been your primary objective. Without doubt, both Spoon and IG have gained more achieved publicity than ever previously but I somehow suspect its been an altogether better experience for IG. Remember the old adage of "there's no such thing as bad publicity", its going to be an interesting challenge for Spoon to turn this into a positive.

It is important to remember that every charity survives due to the endeavours of its voluntary support and I've no doubt that the vast majority of Spoon supporters will remain loyal to their cause. Sadly, their efforts to raise funds for events such as the 4 Peaks or Lakeland Challenges has suddenly become more difficult, as in the same way that journalists are selective about what they report, the public are selective about what they read and remember. The consequence of which will be less funds raised and therefore less money distributed to worthy causes.

At risk of sounding like I'm definitely getting on to my soapbox, may I suggest that an altogether better target for your research would be to monitor to what extent the charity sector is letting the Government "off the hook". With so many charities merely serving to fill the gap conveniently vacated by absence of Government funding. Now that's more of a challenge!

Tim, Alex and Richard – thanks for taking the time to comment.

To deal with Richard’s point first. I understand what you’re getting at with your example of what might/might not look like efficient fundraising, but it’s unfortunately not a valid comparison with how the Spoon works. When the Spoon puts event expenses through its bank account – which it does – it earns significant tax breaks. It doesn’t pay tax on bank-account interest; the people staffing Spoon HQ work for a company that doesn’t pay corporation tax; and the Spoon’s offices benefit from knock-down business rates.

In return for granting such generous treatment to charities, the government expects that charities operate ‘for the public benefit’ – in other words, that everything they do is directed towards making the world a better place. Within this definition, charities are allowed to spend money on fundraising, but if the Charity Commission thinks that any charity is being profligate, it can step in and ask the charity to reform the way it works.

The Spoon is, in our opinion, profligate. When a charity shells out 65 per cent of its total expenditure on activities which aren’t charitable, then it’s time to ask some serious questions.

I also understand why you don’t like the comparison with Pudsey and Comic Relief. But compare the Spoon with almost any of the other charities on our books, and it comes out very badly indeed.

Alex, I also take your point – and to a degree it’s a valid one. But it’s important to realize that lots of charities run events to raise money, including golf days and dinners. Events aren’t a bad thing in themselves. But when they cost more to put on than they raise for charity, then we begin to have some serious worries.

No other charity we’ve seen runs events that are so inefficient. Saying ‘events are expensive’ isn’t an adequate defence of the poor fundraising techniques used by the Spoon.

Tim, I also understand that people sometimes need to be lured to posh dinners in order to give at all. But again, look at how other charities compare to the Spoon. ARK, a charity backed by City financiers, recently raised £11m in one night at a dinner. The Spoon, by contrast, raised only £3m from a raft of events over a whole year. With some serious celebrity support behind it – in the shape of the UK’s national rugby teams – we’d expect the Spoon to be doing substantially better than it does.

I hope this goes at least some way to answering your questions. But we’ll be posting some more detailed, Spoon-based thoughts to this blog tomorrow.

Well what a surprise - poor research, poorly interpreted by journalists has dealt an enormous blow to thousands of well meaning volunteers.

Over the past 10+ years I have spent £000's on Wooden Spoon events and can confirm that they are first class. From a corporate perspective I seek hospitality events that are exceptionally well organised, thus ensuring that any guests being entertained believe they are privileged to have been invited. Such quality costs money and I make such purchases knowing that the actual event costs an enormous amount to stage and therefore only a small element of the ticket price will ultimately go to charity. However, at the events I have seen modest items raise exceptional sums at auction and have personally paid to secure a number of such items. This element is clearly 100% to the charity's benefit. Simply put, in the corporate hospitality arena you can only get your clients to the best events. The Wooden Spoon Ball is such an event and every year for the past decade we have taken a couple of tables (currently c£160 per ticket). If it wasn't good, people wouldn't go back. If people didn't go back there would be no bids at the auction!

I have also been privileged to experience the 4 Peaks Challenge on 6 occasions - 5 times as a competitor and once initially as a guest. To get 50 to 60 teams coordinated throughout the British Isles takes some doing and there are never any shortgae of marshalls giving up their time to ensure this event runs smoothly. The event typically raises £350k to £450k, but I've seen it exceed £500k. All of this going to worthy causes.

Your research sadly has only served to hurt an enormous number of well meaning, dedicated supporters and I'm sure much of the good work done by the small central team at the Spoon and the volunteer committees within the regions is now in vain. However, Spoon has a backbone of support that certainly won't be damaged due to such reports.

Keep up the excellent work Spooners and don't waste too much time on this nonsense.

Richard,You have hit the nail on the head fairly and squarely.There is a huge difference between Charity Fundraising through straight donations and Charity Fundraising through events such as Golf Days,Dinners etc etc.I am an active Spoon member and in our region we  benefit from both sources of income.However its a lot easier to persuade someone to fork out  for a Golf Day or Dinner than it is to get a straight donation.It would be interesting to hear Adam Rothwell,s comments on your post.

Maybe you need to think a little more about what "efficient" means in the context of fundraising. If I organise a London theatre trip for 25 neighbours, maybe the cost of the coach and the ticket will be £40 per head. If I tell them and they agree that the charge will be £50, and the extra £10 will go to a good cause, then I will raise £250 for charity. But that will be only 25% of my expenses of £1000. You seem to think that to be really efficient, I should just ask my neighbours for £10 each. Maybe so, but I bet I would raise a lot less than £250. I didn't know anything about Wooden Spoon until I heard you on the radio a few minutes ago, but aren't their dinners a bit like my example of a theatre trip? People get something - a dinner - and put something on top for charity.

And frankly, it is just pathetic to compare almost any charity with Children in Need and Comic Relief: what do you think is the value of the free resource of the TV broadcast?

Do you think it would be helpful for you to go out and do some real fundraising before you start sniping at people who do?

Thanks, Archer and David, for your comments. I take what you say on board. However, the figures prove that, overall, the Spoon's fundraising methods are remarkably inefficient.

I don't want this to detract from the enormous amount of good work done by the Spoon's supporters. But I think it's a shame that such a lot of effort results in - comparatively - so little money going to good causes. Of course, some money is better than no money - and I'm sure that those charities which have received grants from the Spoon are very grateful. I only wish they could have got more.

Adam, Intelligent Giving

No doubt that Spoon Central, when meeting with IG will be able to iron out the problems relating to the percentages of money that is spent on event and administrative costs can be correctly verified. What seems to have been missed is the fact is that Spoon raises money both centrally (big events that require much in the way of setting up) and at regional level (currently 43 regions) that raise money through the more traditional and less cost extensive ways. Whilst I am quite appreciative of the fact that those that donate to charities need to know that the money they are spending goes in the right direction, there is the addage that would say for many of the types of project that Spoon helps, even 35p is better than no p. This, as Spoon will hopoefully point out is not the case and that figure is indeed much more.

I sit on the Hampshire committee of Spoon and for one reason or another have dedicated a lot of my time to the charity (and many others). Our committee meetings are not held in 5 star hotels with champagne but in rugby clubs over a pint of beer (that is not paid for by Spoon but out of our own pockets). I don't get money to drive to the various events or meetings and think nothing of standing in the pouring rain for a day marshalling a golf day or standing at Alton show all day selling wristbands. I have recently taken part in the 4 Peaks challenge and our team of 4 raised over £31,500 for Spoon - that certainly was not Champagne and caviar. Yes that event does have big overheads, but it promoted the charity wth numerous press releases from the 40 odd teams, raised over £350,000 this year and provided an opportunity for nearly 200 people (including support staff) to do something both challenging and worthwhile. As to gala balls etc, yes they are expensive to put on, but generally those that go and support these events know the score and appreciate that a bulk of their 'entrance' fee goes towards the running of the event. Most of the income comes from raffles and auctions. OK, so Spoon maybe does not attract millions at one of these events, but it is not just champagne induced mutual backslapping!

I'm sorry that IG seem to have misinterpreted the published accounts or that Spoon central have been a little lacking in the clarity of their figures, but what does grate with me is that (barring a small core of paid administration and executive members) hundreds of good an generous people are giving up much time nd effort at no cost to try and improve the lives of the disadvantaged children of this country. If you want to see what a difference we can make, go to Treloars College in Alton and look around, see the kids there and the smiles on their faces, then look at the wheelchair that a charity has provided, or the adapted rooms that they live in, paid for by charities like Spoon and the people that support them. It is easy to knock from the sometimes blinkered comforts of your own front room................

Please wait and see what the outcome from the Spoon and IG discussions are before making judgement, because you are also judging many people who are giving up a part of their lives to help.    

In his profile of Wooden Spoon Adam demonstrates that the 'intelligent' in Intelligent Giving does not apply to IG or its associates. To draw such conlusions merely indicates that Adam does not know how financial reports are constructed. He would otherwise have realised his conclusions are presumptions and not fact.

Many, ordinary people put in hours, days and weeks of their time freely and in most cases do not participate in the events held as they are too busy running them.

Proper scrutiny by Adam and perhaps a few questions to the WS itself would have demonstrated that in fact WS costs very little to run and is probably one of the most efficient charities in operation.

David Somers
14th October 2007

Wooden Spoon acknowledges Intelligent Giving’s analysis and in due course will take the opportunity of responding. As in all cases of figures and statistics, many differing interpretations can be developed; Intelligent Giving has used one approach, which Wooden Spoon believes does not reflect the work of the charity and its supporters. Wooden Spoon is proud of its record of fundraising to help disadvantaged children. We have a unique national structure which is very difficult to judge appropriately as it is rare in the world of charities. Fundraising in, for example, Cornwall, Mid Glamorgan and Cumbria, is very different from that in the Home Counties, therefore the mix in ways we raise money reflects this national diversity. It is against this backdrop that Wooden Spoon will respond and it looks forward to the opportunity of meeting with Intelligent Giving and discussing the matter in more detail.

In your quest for an homogenous, one-size-fits-all charity it would be fair on those you are knocking if balanced comparisons could be made. To compare Wooden Spoon (

Not sure they are picking on the Wooden Spoon chaps. Any organisation that has such high overheads for the money raised can come under fire - but any report has to start somewhere. With one of them.
If something costs a lot to organise, maybe some make a loss or don't get the support expected. Then you try different things. Or find ways to alter income or costs.
Unless its just a blip in the accounts.

I don't know the ins and outs for the year - maybe they had some really good fundraising followed by a couple of large losses to negate some of what had been done.
Or maybe just not very good at keeping costs reasonable for the income.

No they're not. They spend 50+% per cent on charitable causes. With wit and business acumen you can explain away, maybe, Lords' Taverners' future investment in fundraising. This crowd (Spoon boys) have spent only 35% of their alcohol and back-slapping proceeds on charity. That's not a charity, it's a social club. Charities are supposed to be "exclusively charitable" according to Charity Commission rules, and that's why they get those incredible tax benefits. The Commission should strike them off their list (if that's how they do it). What bollocks. PS, IG, well done for exposing it.

I don't think it's fair to pick on the Wooden Spoon chaps - from what I can see, the cricket charity Lord's Taverners is equally inefficient - looks to me like a lot of these sportsmen are just in it for the night out.