Do Christmas gifts get your goat?
Howard Lake | 30 November 2006 | News
More than two thirds of people feel they have been misled when they discover that money they think has bought an ethical gift from a charity gift ccatalogue has, in fact, been used by the charity in different ways.
The Charities Advisory Trust, which launched the Good Gifts Catalogue four years ago, commissioned research from ICM looking at public attitudes to being asked to buy an ethical gift such as a goat, and then finding out that no goat has been bought and the money has been used in other ways.
Almost three-quarters of those surveyed said it would put them off buying such gifts in the future and two-thirds said this would affect future giving to charity.
Advertisement
Charities’ policies on how ethical gifts are portrayed vary. Good Gifts passes over in full all money raised and uses it solely for the purpose stated. Sightsavers says: We will use your donation wherever there is greatest use for it at the time, ActionAid says: By supporting Gifts in Action you can trust us to spend your money where the need is greatest.
CAT director Hilary Blume said the figures shows the public is at odds with charities’ view that it is acceptable to sell a specific ‘gift’ then use the money elsewhere.
A spokeswoman for Christian Aid said the charity made it very clear on the first page of the Present Aid catalogue that money given for ethical gifts would go to a project fund relevant to the gift. There are six funds – agriculture and livestock; emergency and disaster preparedness; healthcare; power and energy; training and education; and water and environment. Christian Aid works with local partners who tell the charity what they most need.
This is supposed to be a fun way of giving to charity, the spokeswoman said. We have tried over three years to make it transparent in terms of being really upfront that the money goes into a ‘pot’. We are always looking to see if we can do it better, but there will always be people who will criticise it.
She said there is still an appetite out there for these gifts and added that the target for Present Aid had increased threefold in as many years.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.