Final News of the World's charity content
Howard Lake | 10 July 2011 | Blogs
Today’s final edition of the News of the World features adverts from 26 charities, eight of them full page. Plenty of big name charities turned down the offer of free advertising in the best selling newspaper’s last issue, but others didn’t.
Those advertising are:
Wellbeing of Women
Friendship Work
Enham
Medecins Sans Frontieres
The Children’s Trust
St John Ambulance
Five Talents
MicroLoan Foundation
Sky Rainforest Foundation
The Well Foundation
DEC
New Family Social
Precious
Fresh2o.org
Terrence Higgins Trust
Children’s Heart Federation
Mend
Row2Recovery
One difference.org
Matt Hampson Foundation
The Children’s Trust
Bhubesi Pride
SPANA
SmileTrain
Peas
World Horse Welfare
I list them for the record. I think that, provided they considered the risks and opportunity, these charities have the right to place these ads.
According to the front page “profits from this historic edition will go to charity”.
To me that reads oddly. Don’t corporates need to state which charity they are supporting under the terms of the Charities Act? I can’t see an asterisk linking to full disclosure.
In fact you can find out more by buying the paper and turning to page 3, at which point they disclose that the beneficiary charities are Barnardo’s, the Forces Children’s Trust, and military care projects at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham Charity.
Move to page 10 and you will find that 74p of the £1 price will be donated and the remainder going to the newsagent or wholesaler. Not the clearest statement I have seen, suggesting an unfamiliarity with charity partnerships.
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.