CAF campaign to make charitable giving the big cheese
Howard Lake | 19 September 2011 | News
UK households spend as much on cheese as they do on charity. That is part of the message of a new giving campaign being launched by Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) today.
CAF’s ‘cheesy’ campaign aims to highlight just how little UK households donate to charity, and to urge the government to make changes that will help increase charitable giving. It is being launched at the Liberal Democrat Party Conference, with its appropriately yellow logo and branding.
The cheese and charity figure is based upon research by Bristol University and Cass Business School which found that UK households spend 0.4% of household spending on cheese and the same amount on charitable giving. This works out at £1.80 per week for the average household whose total weekly spend is £471.
The campaign is backed by eight celebrity chefs: Rachel Allen, John Burton Race, Martin Blunos, Paul De Costa Greves, James Martin, Andrew Nutter, Andrew Turner, and Brian Turner. The chefs have all produced cheese recipes to support the campaign, which can be found on the campaign website.
CAF has created a “charity or cheese?” game which will be at their stand at all the party political conferences.
CAF is suggesting a number of measures that it believes can help raise the amount donated by the public, including urging ministers to start a new drive on giving by pledging to donate a percentage of their salary to charity.
CAF’s four proposals are:
• The Government, business and charity leaders should lead by example in helping to build a stronger culture of giving.
• The Government should make it easier for people to give tax-effectively. For example, Gift Aid and payroll giving need to be widely available and work effectively with mobile and online giving platforms.
• The Government, charities and business should work together to develop more and better partnerships and improve the way companies report about their corporate responsibility programmes.
• The Government should explore ways to encourage individuals and companies to use their assets for social impact through investment as well as giving. This would enable charitable organisations to access much needed capital.
www.cafonline.org/cheese
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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.