Charity fundraising

Fundraising by students is a regular activity in most schools. The reasons are obvious. Fundraising involves fun activities that help others and build group cooperation.

Yet fundraising is not always as educational as it could be. This briefing helps take fundraising to another level, deepening students' understanding and enhancing their potential to become well-informed active citizens.

What exactly is a charity?

Charities are particular kinds of non-profit organisation that benefit the public. To qualify, an organisation has to carry out charitable activities, which are quite tightly defined by law. Relief of poverty is a major charitable purpose. So is furthering religion and promoting education. These were fixed as charitable activities as long ago as the 17th century. Since then, other ways of promoting benefits to the community have been accepted by the charity commission as charitable.

Not all voluntary and non-profit organisations are charities. Political activity is not a charitable purpose, for instance. That means some well-known organisations such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace are not charities – though, of course, plenty of people raise money for them.

On the other hand, the rules mean that some surprising organisations are charities. Oxford University promotes education, and is a charity. Its publishing arm, Oxford University Press, has the same legal status, and is also therefore a charity – even though its trading activities in 2007 brought it turnover of £453 million and net profits of £71.1 million.

Do charities have to be registered?

Yes. Unless they are very small, with an income of less than £1,000 a year and with no premises. Most register with the charity commission [www.charity-commission.gov.uk], which makes a lot of financial and management information on them publicly available. Some types of charities, such as universities, are not registered with the commission, because they are regulated in a different way.

How important are charities?

As those figures show, charities generate a lot of money by means other than donations. Knowing this is important in appreciating what kind of organisations they are. The common image of amateurish organisations doing their best on a shoestring budget doesn't match the reality of many charities today, or the importance of the work they do.

For instance, many receive fees for delivering services on behalf of local or national governments. They may get sizeable grants from charitable trusts or companies. Some hold significant assets, and get income from property they own and other investments. They often have income from their trading arms – linked companies that are not charities but run as commercial businesses that gift their profits to the main charity. And there are charity shops.

Which charities are worth fundraising for?

There is no one answer to that question. It all depends on what the priorities are and what you want to achieve. There is a whole heap of educational potential in finding out the answer for any group. See below for some ideas.

Which charities are most efficient – directing money where it really counts?

This often-voiced concern about overheads also doesn't have a simple answer. To understand why, look at three quite different types of function that an effective charity must successfully carry out:

• They must deliver the benefit to the community that they are set up for.
• They must have management structures and systems to decide the best use of resources, support and train staff and volunteers, pay them, provide necessary equipment and so on.
• They must raise the money needed to meet their costs.

A small local charity might hold meetings in a rented space in a community centre with volunteers doing a lot of its organising work in their own time in their own homes.

One of the tensions charities work with is that the fundraising function – which is vital – may at times clash with parts of the service delivery function. For instance, a charity working with a marginalised group may be encouraging them in positive self-determination, part of which is to develop a sense of worth and dignity.

There are other problems. Fundraising material can oversimplify and is unlikely to focus on the infrastructure spending. A charity fundraiser may say something like: "£10 could provide a family with essentials such as food, clothing and cooking utensils following a natural disaster".

Charities cannot be blamed for such tactics. They compete hard with nearly 200,000 other charities for their share of the public's donations. And they know from experience that the public generally does not wish to know too much about how charities really work. People like the simplified "shopping items".

What can schools do?

Schools can look beyond those simplifications and explore what charities do much more closely – making contact, asking questions and following what really happens. Look at the areas for exploration below.

Areas for exploration with students

Get concrete. It is far too vague to say a charity is for disabled children, cancer or the environment. There is a big difference, say, between cancer research which finances research staff in laboratories and a cancer charity that provides nursing support to affected families. Likewise, a faith-based charity which says it works in Africa may be relieving poverty. But as a charity it may also, quite legitimately, be promoting a religion. So are schools that do a 24-hour fast helping to feed the hungry or contributing towards building a place of worship?

Here are some ideas for increasing the education elements of charity fundraising:

• Try to make a meaningful link between the charity and the school or the class. There may be some personal connection, because of notable individuals, the history or traditions of the area, or current circumstances of a well-known student or local family. A personal link can make a charity's operation more real. 

• Look at the annual report of charities that might be under consideration. See what problems they face, and where they are allocating their resources. Examine what, if anything, marks a charity out from others working in a similar field. Does this resonate with students?

• < schools speaker? prepared package charity with>Consider contacting those who work for a charity, especially those who have direct experience of the service delivery. Prepare questions designed to tell students what they want to know – do not just accept the "schools speaker" with a prepared package of charity PR.

• < schools speaker? prepared package charity with>Enquire what else, apart from fundraising, can be done. Does the charity offer education programmes or opportunities for students to raise awareness among their peers? Are there campaigns, and are these likely to develop students' skills, knowledge or attitudes?

• Try to build a relationship with the charity. Good ones will want to engage with students, regarding them as more than simply an unpaid fundraising team. Find out about the lives of those who are helped. What strategies do they use to help themselves? Knowing who benefits from a charity's work and their real circumstances is a good way to challenge patronising attitudes that perpetuate misleading stereotypes of "active givers" and "passive recipients".

• Have fun. There are many inventive fundraising ideas around, and a keen imagination will always develop new ones. But never lose sight of the point of it all. Would a charity helping victims of alcohol-related violence want a group of students organising a fundraising pub-crawl? Many people would recognise a mismatch there. At all times think about the dignity of those the charity intends to assist.