Development Blogs.com

… I really like the way they demolish the charity-bosses-get-paid-a-fortune myth by comparing Chelsea with Save the Children and Man Utd with the British Red Cross. The bit on Oxfam is worth quoting at length: …at Oxfam, director Barbara Stocking gets £87,265 a year (see PDF of annual report) – much less than Tony at the Opera House, but still a large amount. Wouldn’t this money be better spent on feeding the starving? Probably not. Oxfam is an enormous charity, working in dozens of countries and with an annual turnover of over £200 million. Making sure all that cash is well spent is a difficult job, and one that very few people can do. Those who can do it tend to be expensive. Very expensive. To put it in context, City firm Accenture pays mid-ranking managers about the...

Just imagine if there was an Irish version of this. The Charity Sleuths have finished their work and the Intelligent Giving site is live. And pretty impressive it is too. Sure there are gaps and glitches (if you’re a Mac user you’ll find it doesn’t work properly in Safari, but Firefox seems fine) but overall this is a hugely valuable resource for donors, providing overviews and reviews of hundreds (thousands?) of charities. Each charity is ranked on its accountability and the quality of its reporting. Whether or not it has an ethical investment policy. How long its reserves will last. How much they pay their highest staff. There’s a section that tackles some common charity myths, links to charity awards and a range of articles. And it’s all written in...