Christian Aid

Charity Is An Industry With Tax Breaks And Bribes
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Today’s big charities are slick operations that spend huge sums on running costs and marketing, says Ed Howker. Worse, many of them have been annexed by the government

Since its beginnings as a postwar reconstruction group, Christian Aid has suffered from mission creep: gradually adopting a more muscular political tone. In the 1980s it attacked banks for demanding high interest payments for development loans. At the millennium, the charity pushed for the reform of trade rules. But it wasn’t long before it was flirting with anti-capitalism, printing posters comparing ‘free trade’ to the Asian tsunami in 2005............

By comparison, the left’s relationship with charity has been somewhat tortured, with many seeing ‘good deeds’ as the domain of the state alone. Even by the late 1980s, Gordon Brown held to that view, describing charity as ‘a sad and seedy competition for public pity’. All this changed under Tony Blair. He saw an opportunity to build a new constituency for his party — organizations that would be Labour’s fellow travellers — and so forged relationships between the large charities and Labour which were lubricated with cash. Our cash.

According to figures compiled by the International Policy Network, between 2008 and 2011 the Department for International Development will give £395 million pounds to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), most of them UK-based charities. Few of those who receive the funds are subject to any sort of tendering process and some of the projects are most odd. One £10 million scheme involving Christian Aid sends ‘young British adults from less advantaged backgrounds’ to volunteer, at taxpayers’ expense, in developing countries. A noble cause, one might argue, but one which — critics argue — turn the NGOs into QGOs: quasi-governmental organizations............

According to the National Council for Voluntary Organizations, 25,000 British charities received more than three quarters of their funding from government. Of the others, Oxfam received nearly £40 million in public funding — £35 million from the British and EU governments alone, Christian Aid received more than £11 million from Britain and the EU; the World Wildlife Fund £4.8 million, while the RSPB received nearly £20 million. So close to government are the RSPB that at the start of the month they booked out the London Aquarium to host a party to ‘celebrate’ the passing of the Marine and Coastal Access Act with Environment Secretary Hilary Benn as the guest of honour.

But the charities will do more than throw a party when required. At the G8 summit in Gleneagles and even in the run-up to the Copenhagen summit, they were out marching, bringing activists, waving banners — all broadly supportive of the government’s position and calling on the rest of the world to adopt it. Gordon Brown himself joined the G8 march. It was a seismic moment: government strategists working with their counterparts in big charities. In marketing they call this ‘Astroturf’ — it looks like grassroots, but it’s synthetic.

The leaders of these charities still make the claim that they are independent, but this is nonsense when they are in receipt of millions of pounds of government money and when Labour seeks to make political capital from its relationship with them. In his speech to the Labour party conference this year, the Foreign Secretary David Miliband explained how it all works: ‘If you and your neighbours are supporters of Save the Children, Christian Aid and Oxfam and you want funding for development to continue for the next five years, tell them to trust the people who raised the funding, not the Tories, who opposed it every step of the way.’ The charities made no squeals of protest in being declared as part of Labour’s campaign platform — united against the wicked Conservatives.

There are signs that public opinion is turning. Three years ago, a poll by the Centre for Social Justice asked, ‘If you only had £200 to give to a good cause, who would you give to?’ Only 4 per cent opted for a national charity such as Oxfam or Christian Aid. A full 31 per cent said they would seek out a local charity or church working with needy people — organizations too small to be politicised. But the poll, of course, assumes that people have a choice. This year, each household will — through the tax system — pay an average £200 to a charity of the Labour government’s choice. So next time a Christian Aid volunteer comes to your door, do not say, ‘I don’t give to charity.’ If you pay your taxes, you already do.
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The man is spot on but did not take the point that Christian Aid is run by a tax man who also runs a vulture fund. See the next one.

 

Christian Aid Against Pinstripe Pirates And Tax Evasion [ 3 October 2009 ]
Christian Aid, a charity objects to tax evasion by big business. Now why would that be?
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Christian Aid says that every year the developing world is cheated out of as much as $160bn in revenue by companies disguising their profits –often by using tax havens - to lower their tax liability.
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One of their board members is Phil Hodkinson of the well known vulture fund Resolution Ltd. and also the Inland Revenue. The alleged charity tells us about our alleged moral duty to pay tax, fund immigrants illegal or not, foreign undesirables and Cultural Genocide. The relations between Big Government Big Business and Big Charity are very cozy. It is just the tax payer that is being raped.

 

Christian Aid - fighting for a world free of poverty and injustice
That is their story verbatim. The reality is not so simple.
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Christian Aid Diverted
On 3 March [ 2010? ], the BBC published a story in which Christian Aid is mentioned alongside claims that aid for the 1984 famine was diverted to buy weapons. This is against all of Christian Aid’s principles and our investigations do not correspond to the BBC’s version of events. Christian Aid is disappointed that a story from more than 25 years ago, solely based on the testimony of a former rebel leader has been published by the BBC. Christian Aid has robust systems in place to monitor all emergency relief donations and ensure that humanitarian aid reaches the most vulnerable, regardless of any political, ethnic or religious affiliations they may have........

Christian Aid adheres to strict principles in terms of accounting for the money we spend and was named as the top non-governmental performer in the second Global Accountability Report produced by the One World Trust. For more information about how we ensure we are accountable to our supporters and those we work with around the world read our accountability document.
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The people that run this mob pay themselves rather adequately. Most, it is safe to say never leave Blighty and never get near any aggravation. They concentrate on selling the product.

 

Christian Aid Helps People Out Of Poverty
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How much of the money we donate actually reaches good causes? The answer is never quite clear with today’s highly organized and slickly marketed charities. Some seem more like mini political organizations, advancing their cause by lobbying government and, in many cases, working for it. Take Christian Aid, which now has a budget of £82 million — but spends just £54 million of it doing what it says on the charity box: emergency and development aid. That is inefficient. But when you consider that Christian Aid doesn’t really work in Britain, but employs 453 staff here — at an average cost of £37,000 each — and only 306 abroad, inefficient looks indelicate.

More startlingly, a fat lump of Christian Aid’s resources is set aside for what it euphemistically describes as ‘campaigning, advocacy and education’ — or, in other words, lobbying. Last year Christian Aid spent a valiant £12 million putting their point across, primarily in Britain, and almost identical amounts were spent by Oxfam and the RSPB (although the latter describe their lobbying as ‘education, publications and films’). The purpose of some of these campaigns may trouble a well-meaning donor, since they often seem to have a political edge. Today, if you buy your Christmas cards from the RSPB, you might not only be funding the preservation of the Great Crested Grebe but the lesser-spotted New Labour stitch-up, while Christian Aid sometimes looks better suited to fighting elections than poverty.
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But they do fight poverty; paying their own an average of £37,000 each proves it. Obviously the managing director gets more. The poor in England get the dole. Honest working men get wages. Admin wallahs get salaries while bosses get remuneration packages. As for the rich, don't ask.