“Charitable Giving in the UK is down 15% or £1.7M in absolute terms says the UK Giving 2012 Report. As a result of this shocking statistic the big charity umbrella bodies have launched the campaign ‘Back Britain’s Charities’to try to curb the downward spiral.
I have a lot of respect for these organisations and anyone trying to raise a flag for giving is a friend of mine but I don’t think that the government are going to come up with the answers they are looking for.
I believe this campaign is focused in the wrong direction, with only one of its five points looking at how we, the everyday people engage with giving. Their call to action is ‘Individuals should support charities by giving as regularly as they can, regardless of how much time or money they are able to give.’
Whilst I believe this to be true I don’t think it is nearly a sexy enough message, I don’t think that a moral stand is enough to get more people excited about giving.
Last night visiting a very old and dear school friend I got into a conversation with her boyfriend Jon about giving. He said “I think giving is easy enough to do, I just don’t want to do it” he went on to say “I feel that doing my job as a physio is enough of a contribution.”
This is a common view and one that I completely understand given the limited and relatively boring options currently available to him. He was adamant that giving wasn’t for him until I explained about a platform called The Burner where he can set personal running goals using RunKeeper and get his mates to bet against him completing his goal with all the money going to the bet winners favourite charity. He immediately changed his position and agreed he would do it!”
To finish reading the article CLICKHERE or on the Huffington Post logo!
Comments are closed.