London-based offices and rebranding waste of money for charities, public say

Almost one in five respondents said that they would have more confidence in a charity if the staff paid for their own Christmas party. Photograph: Stockbyte/Getty Images

Almost three in four people have said that London-based offices and rebranding are a waste of money for charities, an nfpSynergy poll of 1,002 adults has shown.

The poll was carried out as part of nfpSynergy's Charity Awareness Monitor, which surveys a representative sample of adults in Britain. Of those surveyed, 74% felt that London-based offices for charities were a "somewhat" or "very" wasteful expenditure, with just 4% saying they were "fairly" worthwhile, and the rest saying they were unsure.

Rebranding recieved a similar response, with 72% of people saying it was wasteful for charities to spend money on changing their name, logo or look, and just 9% saying they felt it was worthwhile.

Joe Saxton, founder of nfpSynergy, said: "London offices make complete sense for many charities, so they need to be honest and proactive about the benefits. Being in London provides a much better pool of staff to recruit from and the small savings outside London would be a false economy."

More than half (62%) of those surveyed said they would feel confident that a charity spends donations well if staff did not travel in first class and 55% of respondents said they would feel confident if the organisation was mostly ran by volunteers. Of those surveyed, 51% said that if nobody in the organisation was paid more than ?50,000 a year that would increasse their confidence in the charity.

In addition, close to one in five (23%) said that they would have more confidence in a charity if staff paid for their own Christmas party, while 9% felt that staff would need to work for free one day a month for them to feel confident in a charity's spending.

"Paying someone more than ?50,000 and ?100,000 [makes sense for charities]," Joe Saxton said. "If that person brings a skillset, a breadth of experience and other benefits, be proactive and tell the world about it. I think every major charity can justify paying their chief executive over ?100,000.

"What charities need to remember is that if London offices or ?100,000 salaries are worthwhile, they need to scream and shout about why. The sector needs to talk about these issues now, not hope that nobody notices what they are doing."

Online tools and lobbying recieved a more positive response, with 70% of respondents saying they felt that spending money on a website was worthwhile and over half of those surveyed saying that lobbying government and other organisations (58%), as well as advertising (67%), were worthwhile.

In addition, 48% believed that producing a magazine to update supporters on work that had been done was a worthwhile expenditure for charities.

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Source: http://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sector-network/2013/jul/31/london-offices-waste-money

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