Martin Luther King says it better than I can…
Howard Lake | 4 February 2009 | Blogs
So, fare thee weel, FRSB. And with it my foray into fundraising (for a while anyway). I left the FRSB just over a week ago. Much of my last week was spent doing a Winslet – teary, effusive and overcome by people’s kindness and good wishes. For the lovely emails, lunch, jewellery, wine and tunes – thank you all.
I’ve just had a week of leisure too – bliss. Mostly spent watching the birds feeding in the garden, visiting art galleries, cleaning kitchen cupboards and even watching Flog It. And like the good little Presbyterian I am (or pretend to be sometimes) I sorted out my charitable giving, ensuring that a tithe of my income really does go to good causes. Your hour of need is my time of deed kind of thing.
But mostly I spent that week cogitating and ruminating on my time at the FRSB . What was good, bad and downright ugly. What I learned, what I’d do differently, what is needed now. And UK Fundraising (fools that they are) have kindly given me a blog to tell it all – exclusively dear readers!
In the meantime, why did I leave? Well some of you might be wondering when I was going to get to the Martin Luther King bit. And here it is. MLK Junior once said “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary”.
And that totally sums up why I’ve moved on, and back to policy and campaigning work.
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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.