Report to the People
20th October 2003
Charitable Misgiving
At
the end of last month, a couple from Ohio were jailed for conning money out of
local well-wishers to help treat their seven-year-old daughter for a case of
leukaemia she didn’t have.
The
scam, which involved the mother shaving her daughter's head, doping her
up with sleeping pills and even sending her to counselling to prepare for her
impending death, netted mum and dad an estimated $30,000 in donations
– and did God knows what sort of emotional damage to the child.
Not
only is the willingness of some to pray on the good nature of others utterly
distasteful and incomprehensible (to the vast majority of us at least), it
taints our view of charity as a whole.
Be
honest. After reading last week’s
headlines about the Moonbeams children's cancer charity, did you feel more or
less inclined to drop some loose change in a rattled can when you were in the
town on Saturday? Did you hesitate, wondering how much of your cash
would go to the good cause and how much straight into the charity’s own
pockets?
We
cannot allow the actions of the unscrupulous few – Professor Gordon McVie, who
has been chief executive of Cancer Research UK, says that out of all the
organisations in Scotland there are “tens” he wouldn’t trust – to
undermine confidence in the decent many.
And
the only way to do that is through proper regulation of the charitable sector.
The
Scottish Parliament, therefore, already has plans in hand to bring in new laws
to establish a Scottish Charities Regulator.
This body will have the power to investigate and take action in suspected
cases of mismanagement and misconduct.
And,
as Communities Minister, Margaret Curran, announced in her statement to
Parliament on the issue a few weeks ago, so you can make sure a charity is
legitimate, the Regulator will also maintain a publicly accessible register of
all charities operating in Scotland.
The
regulation of fundraising and will be improved and, to allay fears about where
your money is really going, it will be easier to find out how the charity to
whom you give your money is spending it.
The
money we choose to give to charity should go to those in need.
Not into paying people to do more fundraising, or into lobbying, or into
someone’s back pocket.
That we need new laws to make sure this happens is, I suppose, a sad reflection on some of the greedy parasites we have in our society. But, sad or not, we must restore our confidence in charitable giving.
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