Just because an activity takes place under the label of charity doesn't mean it shouldn't be challenged, writes SARAH CAREY
NEWS THAT Irish Aid, the development section of the Department of Foreign Affairs, has declared itself satisfied with the accounts of the Niall Mellon Township Trust will come as some relief to the admirable Mellon. Irish Aid wanted to know precisely what the charity did with the €5 million it was granted in 2007 before considering a new application for funds to build houses in Cape Town.
In 2007, officials took into account the public goodwill towards the trust when they agreed to award the grant. But public goodwill is not necessarily an indicator of best practice. Mellon has just received a Meteor Humanitarian Award, along with a donation of €100,000, and is getting plenty of publicity at the moment. As the new application is being considered, and as Irish Aid’s budget is severely cut, I’d urge it to stick to its core principles and ignore the hype. Good PR does not equate to good value.
Charities were no different to other products during the boom. It was easier to pay up rather than ask questions. It seemed vulgar or mean to query cost or genuine need. Whether it was a new dress, a holiday or a charity lunch – just write the cheque. That was a pity, because a lot of money was donated to a lot of charities.
Where did it go?
Most of the time, you couldn’t say no, because a friend was asking. Or you didn’t mind, because you assumed the funds would be put to a good purpose. But then you’d discover that the hotel got the full ticket price. Or the PR woman got paid when you thought she was volunteering. Charities need money more than ever, but it’s up to us to ask the rude questions we should have asked all along.
In the case of the Niall Mellon Township Trust, each of the 500 volunteers that travel to South Africa in the “building blitz” to complete 200 houses in a week must raise €5,000. Half of that pays for costs such as travel, accommodation and food for the volunteers. Five hundred volunteers costing €2,500 adds up to €1.25 million. I’ve often wondered whether that could be spent more productively.
An excellent analysis in the Sunday Timesrecently shed more light on the activities of the trust. Mark Tighe reported that while the "building blitz" gets the most attention, Mellon builds 6,000 homes a year through a scheme called the People's Housing Process, under which the South African government pays a subsidy of €5,000 towards the construction cost of each house.
The trust is so successful at winning these contracts that it accounts for 33 per cent of all social housing built in the region.
But Tighe saw sight of an Irish Aid document that reported that the South African government was concerned that the “fund-raising activities of enable it to tender at a commercial advantage”, and “may be crowding out local subcontractors and South African companies, who are losing business as a result”.
It also found that its training of poor South Africans was limited.
Since Irish Aid’s core principle is long-term development of the local community, this was a cause of some concern. Obviously, Mellon leaves good houses behind him, but couldn’t he achieve the same goal in a more sustainable way? Perhaps he should consider changing his model, rather than persisting in scaling up a once-good idea. Instead of competing with South African firms, should he invest in them? Instead of flying out Irish builders, should he train more South African ones? And to a higher quality?
I’ve nothing against Mellon, but just because an activity takes place under the label of charity doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be vigorously challenged.
If you’re asked for a donation, you should inquire about the direct use to which the money will be put. If it’s a ball, how much of the ticket price is going to the hotel, and how much to the charity? What are the administration costs of the charity? Is the work sustainable, and is anyone else doing the job better?
For example, the Marie Keating Foundation fails the value-for-money test in my book. It has mobile units that visit towns to distribute leaflets to “raise cancer awareness”, while nurses give public talks. Its best work was refurbishing the oncology waiting room at St James’s in Dublin.
But I don’t see why it can’t achieve the same results by leveraging Ronan’s celebrity status to donate funds directly to the indisputably excellent Irish Cancer Society, instead of paying the costs of running its own charity.
In contrast, Release was established by Tara Cunningham to plug the gap created by a desperate shortage of speech therapists for disabled children. It trains teachers and parents in speech therapy so they can teach their own children. The results are concrete and fundamentally life-changing. The model is low-cost and scalable to a global level – a venture in which the international organisation Ashoka is supporting Cunningham.
The recession has forced us, individuals and the State, to demand that we get a bang for every buck. We shouldn’t allow the halo of charity to stop us performing the same exercise when we’re asked to donate.