Third sector rescue package an insult
Howard Lake | 9 February 2009 | Blogs
Following much detailed planning and calculation by both acevo last year and NCVO last month, the government today announced its financial support for the third sector.
NCVO and acevo had calculated £100 and £500m respectively and whilst the latter may have been a tad ambitious, the actual amount announced by Liam Burne is £42.5m. This is the man who infamously sent an 11-page memo to his support staff outlining specifically at what times and in what ways he demanded soup and coffee during his tenure.
The plan comprises a £16.5m ‘modernisation fund’ to help charities looking at mergers and collaborations, a £15.5m ‘community resilience fund’ and a £10m volunteer brokerage scheme. BUT, if your organisation is already working with local government to support volunteering, then it’s unlikley you will be eligible!
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With more redundancies on the horizon it must be a higher priority to help charities organise volunteering opportunities and seek different streams of funds to use creatively. But even those offered in this package are effectively restricted and don’t enable fundraisers to target their specific issues!
By way of scale, I looked up how much we have spent on the war in Iraq so far. Depending on which source you use, the UK government’s spend to date is between £7.5 and £9 billion!
I also looked up how much the government has ‘given’ to the banking industry. So far, it’s around £50 billion to buy shares in the banks to keep them afloat plus just over £30 billion from the previous round of support before Christmas. This doesn’t include the loan guarantees etc.
How can fundraisers honestly be expected to jump up and down for joy at today’s announcement?
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.