Why do some charities make giving so difficult?

Much of my work with Charityflow involves researching and contacting charities to see whether they are the right organisations for my clients to engage with to make the difference they want to make. Put simply I’m seeing if they are the right place for my clients money.

Inevitably when I am able to reach the right person in an organisation they are interested in talking to me. After all I represent their lifeblood - funding. However in some cases I am amazed how difficult it can be get to the right person to start the conversation - how difficult it can be to get a charity interested in being funded.

In order to reduce their administration some charities websites’ only “contact us” link is an info@… or similar email address. No names, no telephone numbers given. This would be fine, if not a little impersonal, if properly administered. It rarely is. Some of these charities also profiled their Trust and Foundation managers on their websites but without contact links they are pretty useless.

A recent attempt to reach a number of sports based charities who operated only using such a link has resulted in either (a) no response at all; (b) “we are very busy and will be in touch soon”, followed by silence and (c) in one case a response saying that they are not considering any grant applications at the moment. I emailed the latter one back saying I was trying to give them money, not get it but I have not heard nothing more.

So far only one of the charities I have contacted this way has positively engaged with me even though all my advances have referred to significant funding opportunities for them. Perhaps it is because they really are particularly busy, or maybe closed for Christmas (more on this in a moment). I will persevere because I believe the work they do is good but I wish they would at least try to meet me half way.

Charities also hamstring themselves by closing for prolonged holidays, especially over Christmas. Christmas is the season of giving. The time many families  sit down and decide how to distribute their annual giving. This is one time they are together and the moment when they want to know more about the work of their target charities.

Research in the US has shown that 30% of annual giving occurs between Thanksgiving and New Year, with most of this occurring in the last few days of the year, yet many UK charities decide to close for some or even all of the part working weeks at this time of year. Nice for the staff, not great for the beneficiaries.

Finally, when thinking about funding a charity there is no such a thing as too much information on a website. Annual accounts, impact statements, mission statements, current and recent projects are all examples of the sorts of things funders want to see but frequently don’t find.

Unless they’ve got something to hide (in which case they shouldn’t be looking for money) charities should make life easier for the funders. Much of the information can be got elsewhere. Their accounts are available via the relevant regulator.

Foundations, Trusts and Corporate donors are major funders of the sector and their decisions are based on being able to get in touch with right people who understand what they are looking for and on getting as clear a picture as possible about the charity. Most charities understand this but I’m surprised how many don’t.