The Gazette 1992

GAZETTE

MARCH 1992

A New Beginning for Charities?

In 1990 a Committee headed by Mr.

Justice Costello presented a Report

on Fund-Raising Activities for

Charitable and Other Purposes. The

report of the Committee did not

attract any great comment in the

media but the recent announcement

that the Government proposes to

implement these proposals has

thrown a new spotlight on its

contents.

Much of the report contains most

welcome recommendations. We do

not have sufficient control over

charities. The fact that 90% of our

charities are run with scrupulous

honesty does not avoid the need to

prevent abuse by those whose interest

in a charity is merely as a means to

gain personal profit. There is a need

to know precisely what part of the

contributions apparently made for

the benefit of a charity actually

reach that charity. There have been

disturbing suggestions recently that

the main charities have not benefited

as significantly from some

spectacularly successful fund-raising

activities as the donors might have

believed. A secondary question is as

to whether when funds reach the

charity how much of these funds

may be gobbled up in administration

expenses.

There has also been abuse of the law

in relation to lotteries of property

though the Law Society can pride

itself that its warning to members

not to get involved in lotteries of

houses or pubs seems to have pretty

well killed o ff that craze.

The Committee recommended an

increase in the scope and powers of

the Commissioners of Charitable

Donations & Bequests. It must be

doubted whether, given the nature

and scope of its activities since its

inception, the Commission will be

capable of turning itself into the

active monitoring body that clearly

will be required in the future.

A particularly interesting aspect of

the report is the attention which it

devoted to the activities of

professional fund raisers; its

recommendation that fund raisers

should be registered and that the

form of their contracts of

engagement should be subject to

ministerial control. This is welcome.

If there is an aspect of the report

which gives some cause for concern,

it is the danger that it may be seen

to be recommending too bureaucratic

a system of control over charity

fund-raising at the lower end of the

spectrum. The requirement that

organisations (which in itself poses

the question of what constitutes an

organisation under Irish Law) should

be exempt from registration may not

be broad enough. The basic

requirement that they do not solicit

or receive funds in excess of £10,000

should surely be sufficient to exempt

them from registration rather than

limiting their activities to "local

areas" as well. It is to be hoped that

the guidelines for the records which

such exempted organisations are to

maintain will not be too stringent.

There is a danger that if the Report

were to be implemented too strictly,

any new legislation could limit

spontaneity which is an essential

element of many small fund-raising

ventures.

Individual or small groups of

individuals should be allowed to

organise small to medium scale

collection for urgently needed funds.

The recent Romanian Orphans

Appeals where groups got together

to arrange collections of goods,

monies, visits of medical personnel

and other social workers might well

not have been permitted under the

sort of legislation envisaged by the

Report.

Perhaps there were too many

representatives of the major

charitable organisations and

members of the public service on the

Committee. Donors might not have

wanted to impose quite such strict

controls over the methods of

operation, as distinct from the

financial controls, as the Committee

appears to require. The public may

be more tolerant of house to house

collections and open bucket

collections than the Committee

believed. The public has a simple

method of disapproving of such

collections and, unless and until they

do, perhaps their view should carry

the day.

•

Law Society Annual Conference 1992

BERLIN

"Lawyers in Business in Europe"

Packages £475 - £650 per person sharing (includes flight, transfers, bed

and breakfast in top class hotels).

O V ER 250 A T T E N D I NG - O N L Y A F EW P L A C ES R E M A I N !

Don 't miss this exciting event! Contact

Sandra Fisher

at the Law Society

immediately. Tel: 710711; Fax: 710704.