High voluntary income boosts credibility in lobbying

Charity Finance

February 2008

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The more voluntary income a charity has, the more confident it is when lobbying parliament, and thus the more likely it is to impress MPs.

This is the message to come out of a new survey of 180 MPs, which aimed to find out which charities impressed them and how this related to the organisation’s voluntary income.

The study by nfpSynergy found that the top 30 charities to most impress MPs, which included Diabetes UK and RNIB, got an average of 61 per cent of their income from voluntary sources, against a 38 per cent sector-wide average. Even those organisations that had less than the 38 per cent sector average and impressed MPs, such as Barnardo’s and Mencap, still had large voluntary incomes as a result of their overall size.

Joe Saxton, driver of ideas at nfpSynergy, said the findings showed that “despite recent prime ministerial Compact-related assurances, only charities with significant proportions of non-statutory income feel independent and confident enough to engage with, and thereby impress, MPs”.

“Charities should know that financial independence is the precursor to making you more influential and ultimately effective, not less,” he said.

Speaking to Charity News Alert, Saxton said the reason for this was three-fold. Firstly, charities need the voluntary income in order to pay for the policy and lobbying teams; second, voluntary income gives charities a feeling of freedom that enables them to say what they want without fear of losing funding; and finally, the charities that scored highly with MPs already had a well-known brand.

“The top 30 charities [that impressed MPs] are all well-known organisations that have a strong image. To be known is part and parcel of it - if you do things that get you into the media spotlight it raises your profile with both MPs and the donating public,” Saxton said.

His comments were echoed by Nick Seddon, author of Who Cares? How state funding and political activism change charity, who said he didn’t find the results “in any way surprising”.

“If charities have a high level of voluntary funding they'll feel free to criticise the government without worrying too much about what would happen if a statutory funder took umbrage and cut a contract or grant,” he said.

“But perhaps a more interesting possible reason is charities believe voluntary donations provide them with a mandate. If the public is funding them through voluntary giving, then they can reasonably claim they have legitimacy to speak on the public’s - or their constituents’ - behalf. They can go to MPs and say: ‘we the people’ - or rather, ‘we on behalf of the people’.”

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