Charity Stuff
British Religion in Numbers brings us this rather dismal stat:
YouGov interviewed online a representative sample of 1,903 adult Britons aged 18 and over on 6 and 7 October. They were asked a couple of questions about how they would donate £10 for charitable purposes.
Given thirteen options for donating this money, and being invited to select up to three, charities for the advancement of religion came bottom of the list, chosen by a mere 2%. This proportion did not vary across demographic sub-groups.
Whilst on the subject of charity, Third Sector are reporting:
The social care charity Catholic Care has appealed against the Charity Commission’s latest decision not to allow it to restrict its adoption service to heterosexual couples.
The charity has lodged an appeal with the charity tribunal against the commission’s reaffirmation in August that Catholic Care could not change its objects to allow it to prevent gay people from using its adoption service.
The regulator reaffirmed its decision, which it originally made in December 2008, after being asked by the High Court to review it.
Benjamin James, a partner at law firm Bircham Dyson Bell, which is representing the charity, said he believed that when it reaffirmed its decision the commission misinterpreted the High Court ruling.
Good luck with that!
Tags: Religion Society
October 15th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Regarding the first article:
“What we do with our money tells us something about what sort of people we are, including our values in life. From this perspective, the findings of a recent YouGov poll would seem to indicate that religion does not feature high on our rank order of priorities.”
Followed by:
“Top of the list came charities for the advancement of health or the saving of lives (44%), for the assistance of those in need (32%), for the prevention or relief of poverty (19%), for animal welfare (19%), and for the promotion of the armed forces or emergency services (13%). Some of these charities will naturally have religious links or roots.”
Quite frankly, it seems like people have their priorities in order, and that last sentence contradicts the insistently negative tone of their summary.
October 15th, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Interesting that the local comprehensive school raises thousands of pounds a year from the deprived areas from which it draws its students only to be syphoned off into the pockets of charity workers and robbed out by third world corruption while at the same time private schools benefit from charitable status, worth £100 million a year in tax breaks alone?
Charity is a dirty word in the U.K. it is a corrupt industry and a get rich quick scam for some.
October 15th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
I’m with Cabal on this. Is it really such a dismal stat? Imagine if it was the other way around, with “the advancement of religion” accounting for 44% and “the advancement of health or saving lives” accounting for just 2%. Now surely that would be cause for serious concern?
What I found disappointing was the lowly 5% for “the advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity”. A higher score for this category would be for me the mark of a mature and truly civilised society.