Charity

There has been an intense debate in the media over the last week about the collapse of the Kids Company charity. While this is interesting in its detail as to whether or not it was financially mismanaged, I think the more important question that it raises what is charity?

It used to be simple; a charity used contributions from individuals often through collecting tins to spend on specific causes. So for instance OXFAM was originally established to mitigate famines throughout the third world. When there were crises in a particular area then there was a specific appeal to help in that area. Banardos was a charity to run children’s homes.

Nowadays everything has become far more complex. Charities are now contracted to provide services that were traditionally performed by central or local government. I read this week how the government had given over £3 million to Banardos to provide children’s monitoring services in the troubled town of Rotherham. Effectively charities are sub-contracting their expertise to government. I think that this can be a win/win situation however it becomes a problem when charities loose sight of the giving element of charity and become completely dependent on government money. It is now not a two way process. This as Kids Company found out can be disastrous when the government turns of the tap.

Now we can just about understand that extension of the concept of charity. But then let us consider the case of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway - this is a charity. Yes people do give money and time to keep a heritage railway running. But it is also a large commercial concern providing employment and transport across the North Yorkshire Moors. A charity?

We then get to the more interesting case of private schools; almost all of these have charitable status that is usually based on the dubious premise that they give a limited number of scholarships. These schools that already have considerable privileges thus gain financial advantages over their state school counterparts particularly in the way that they are treated for Value Added Tax. Charities?

So the practical application of charity in our society is very diverse, and in some cases it would appear that the status is abused at least it is stretched to the limit. Government is also increasingly using charities as a backstop for services that they do not wish to perform. Ultimately charity is a very personal thing, it is doing something for somebody or something else for which nothing is required in return. Remember charity begins at home!