3 Reasons Why We Suddenly Hate Kids Company
1. We don't like charities with growth ambitions.
We expect charities to be meek and deferential. We expect them to pay their staff below-market salaries, and minimize expenditure on marketing. It's is the opposite of what we expect from businesses; and Dan Pallotta has
eloquently explained why it's dead wrong.
2. We're too lazy to think analytically about big numbers.
￡46m of grant funding seems like a shockingly large amount. But over a period of 15 years, Kids Company provided support for between 24,000 and 36,000 young people and their families. So ￡46m equates to a much-less-shocking ￡3m
per year, or ￡1,300 - ￡1,900 per person. Moreover, Kids Company's last accounts show that by 2013, 77% of its funding came not from the government but from private donations.
3. Everyday sexism.
Camila Batmanghelidjh outmanoeuvred civil servants & government ministers, and out-competed other charities. These are the influencing and sales skills that are lauded in male business leaders. But because she is a woman, they are presented as witchcraft. Batmanghelidjh, we are told, is "distinctive", "extrovert", "colourful"; David Cameron was "mesmerised".
Membership expert - actively developing membership based projects. Chartered Manager with 50 years of accumulated business knowledge and expertise
9 年Sam, OK, but where is the actual evidence on the numbers you have quoted in your article. I have no issues about everything else you say, but the reporting processes Kids Company have really do appear to be non existent and for a charity irrespective of the amount of money they get or the work they do that is not acceptable.
Innovation, Insurance, Policy - founder, inventor and chairperson.
9 年1. I expect a charity to be sustainable. Most "good" charities - those with a brand that enjoys longevity, don't rely on hand to mouth cashflow. They invest and create a platform to grow from. Spending a lot of money quickly isn't growth - it's juicing. It's not the hard hours - it's the fundraising, the fun bits. And that definitely is an art. But the master makes it the catalyst, not the fuel. All well and good if that money can keep being raised and a high % is going on activity and not cost - but what diversification has the charity made to its funding? Investing isn't just about spreading risk, either - it's about the people the charity aims to help. One of the excuses made after the collapse was that "the kids we've helped will now suffer". Perhaps they should have considered what would have happened to those kids if they didn't still exist in 10 years - because they'd woefully mismanaged their capital and not create the sustained bedrock of other fantastic charities. That's why it looks more like an ego play, rather than something that was competently and professionally created and managed for the future children that were in need. 2. There a number of charities that help the disadvantaged, and I quite sure that ￡46m is a very large sum to them. When we analyse, we compare, being rudimentary and saying: "￡1,900 per person isn't so much!" is flawed. ￡1,900 is a huge amount, around the same amount George Osbourne is being vilified for removing from Tax Credit-reliant families. So the small numbers still bear consideration. 3. No one denies she's talented at business development - that part of her career is not an issue. It's what she and her employees DID with that money. Some people may well be being sexist towards her - just like it would be sexist for people to say that a man in her position had "oiled his network" or "been a typical greedy man". That's unacceptable. It's one thing to suggest someone is narrow in their analytical approach, quite another to deploy it a shield against those asking rational, sound questions requesting audit of money that could have been spent by the state on welfare, or by the rest of the charity market. It's too easy to deploy "maybe you're a sexist" - we have to be brave and not fall back onto that, it's not about that. I've previously tweeted & blogged about the way charity is used to mine "expenses" via high cost ratios - and man, women, LGBT, I don't care - honesty binds all their obligations. To go insolvent shows that it didn't work - so let's look at the facts. Asking how it went wrong and wondering - "So, you had ￡46m, what exactly lead you to spend all of that and go bankrupt as a charity?" seems a really logical question. There's no bitterness saying - "Look at this woman who's failed" - if that's between other people's lines, it's not in mine. She's certainly got a unique style - good on her. She could dress up as a Goblin in a spacesuit - I don't care, as long as she's spending every penny in the most honest and credible way possible. If that doesn't stack up in hindsight - maybe it never stacked up at the time.
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9 年Agree 110% Sam. When will we learn.......