Maybe the successful charities are the ones who are more concerned about how they are going to change the world in future years than about congratulating themselves for what they have achieved in past decades.

I broadly agree with you Joe. I've worked at a charity where income budgets were incresed during an anniversary year as the view was that "People will give more as it's our 75th anniversary" which I found laughable.

I believe that anniversaries DO provide some sort of a fillip for staff (everyone celebrates their personal birthday in some way so it's not really unreasonable if the organisation you work for is celebrating a birthday) -though I imagine it would be impossible to produce a measuable benefit of "feel-good" against the (often excessive)spend.

Also in truth the "celebration" tends to come down to little more than a flash on the logo and a few inconsequential events. (your small box of fireworks analogy)

If anything I DO believe they have a role to play with legacy/bequests. Reminding the general public that a charity has a degree of longevity must help in some way with obtaining legacies/bequests in the future, but even this would need to be really well thought through and executed.

Couldn't agree more that the 'self glorification' anniversary is often largely irrelevant to external audiences. But it can be used as a internal platform to 'reaffirm vows', to get people to lift their heads from the day to day and energise the sense of purpose. This only works if its part of an ongoing internal culture building exercise though.

On another point, interesting to see Joe's teen memories break out of the sub concious.

What's with the neo-puritanism!

I agree with Trevor's birthday analogy. People celebrate their birthdays despite them not typically (speaking for myself) constituting an "a celebration of incredible success or significant achievement?" or being anything more than "a celebration of being a bit older".

It seems rather puritanical to me to condemn corporate birthdays outright. Perhaps it is a question of only marking significant anniversaries and not spending excessively in doing so.

A good example might be http://www.charitycomms.org.uk/articles/celebrating-success-and-our-bir…

which is an excellent example of a well-led charity marking its birthday in an appropriate way ;-)

I think where a charity aligns an anniversary celebration with a practical appeal (fundraising primarily), it creates a useful synergy and helps to generate additional profile and traction. It can also help set out plans for the foreseeable future if managed properly. For smaller charities it can actually be a life saver from an income generation perspective. I'm working on a 40th anniversary appeal with a small charity at present, so I'll give you an outcomes based view when it's (successfully!) concluded.

If the 'celebration' has a particular aim - e.g. to fundraise while raising or repolishing your profile - then fine. But champagne corks for their own sake? Forget it. I suspect the self-ingulgence of much of the latter is at work with many anniversaries.

You have a good point Joe, where excessive spend is concerned but I suspect that is rarely the case. More commonly charities work very hard to achieve some hard-won profile and a rare opportunity to celebrate past achievements on very minimal budgets.

At Action on Hearing Loss we celebrated our centenary last year (a significant event by any standard) and the anniversary gave a real focus for a re-examination of our brand and our values. I agree that it's of far more interest internally than externally but that can be a real opportunity for staff and volunteer engagement. We are still reaping the benefits now from the work we did last year and I would definitely argue that, if you go into the process with realistic expectations - and a careful eye on the budget, there can be long term benefits.

Oh Joe what a party pooper you are! Surely it all depends how you frame plans & manage expectations. And of course it should be a big birthday or one that has some external relevance. It can be a fabulous little hook for Comms, a chance to deepen engagement with donors & perhaps re engage those who fell out of love with you along the way. And perhaps, perhaps a lever for some new partnerships. It can give focus to a team, allow them to reflect on why the charity exists, what it's done to justify that existence & to think why should the world care. And of course it should be used to inspire & motivate staff & make them feel proud & loved. But a big fundraiser? Something which is going to get you oodles of supporters & column inches? Well, no. And like newspaper appeals, Trustees love birthdays because it's tangible & they can get involved & feel proud & tell their neighbours. Not a reason to do an all singing & dancing event but their enthusiasm shouldn't be sniffed at. So Joe. If you want to feel re inspired by b-days....check out Merlin next year. I hope to change your mind.

You picked a great moment to irritate me as we're just about to clebrate our 15th! However, our approach is based on the understanding that people are not generally going to turn up to a dull event just because they think what you do is 'good work', but that they want something enjoyable to do - something they would consider spending time and money on anyway. So, we are hosting a whole series of events over the next six months - mostly to raise money - a comedy night with Jo Brand, a music event, a pop-up restaurant etc. So far it's cost us virtually nothing apart form one part-time fundraiser's salary. Why not come and join in - it might cheer you up!

Absolutely, totally, emphatically true. I should know. Vainglorious, expensive, wasteful, pointless, dull. Someone's ego-trip, an indicator of a charity's lack of self-awareness, a betrayal of those whom the charity professes to serve, and an insult to those who support the charity with their donations. Celebrate success, by all means. But don't put an open tab behind the bar and leave a load of free-loaders to drink the place dry by morning.

Confession. At Friends of the Earth we've spent some of our valuable time - and supporters' money - in the past 12 months celebrating our 40th birthday.

We had a good old think about whether we should do this at all. Then we had an equally good think about what to do. In case anyone else finds it useful, here's what we came up with:

1. We hired a nightclub called Heaven and filled it with people - many of whom we haven't seen for a while. Over several months we tracked down contact details for hundreds of people from our past - some going right back to the founding days of the organisation. If you were there you'd know what an incredible buzz it was as 600 people renewed old friendships, ate and drank - and danced a bit. We could have not held a party and instead sent out a few hundred annual reviews with a nice covering letter. But we know how powerful face to face contact is if you really want people to engage - and be ambassadors. We've followed up on lots of offers of support since that night.

2. We got four former directors of Friends of the Earth - Tom Burke, Jonathon Porritt, Charles Secrett and Tony Juniper - to share a platform at our annual conference. This brought the combined experience and intellectual clout that led this organisation over four decades face to face with dozens who work here now - and hundreds more volunteers who campaign up and down the country week in week out. And we had a real debate. Why haven't we saved the planet yet? Are we getting our strategy and campaigns right? Where should we go from here? I'm not sure we would have done this without the 40th year as an organising principle.

3. We made a film that tells the story of our first 40 years. (Shameless plug - see it here: http://bit.ly/40foe) We also asked 40 people to tell us why they support us, commissioned a photogrpaher to take their portraits and ran the stories in a gallery and series of weekly blogs. We learnt a lot by doing this and we're likely to do more of it. Plus we've been able to re-use the content in fundraising, in exhibitions, online and offline. (http://www.foe.co.uk/living/galleries_index_31276.html)

We never expected mainstream media to regard our birthday as a story - though as it happens, at least one paper picked up the photo gallery. But what we think we did pull off was to reach out to some of the people who are the lifeblood of an organisation like this.

Just as important, we think we told our story. And we know that telling stories about how we got to this point can help people take the next step with us. As you say, Joe, no one - least of all the media - cares about the number 40. But a birthday is a simple idea. And simple is sometimes just what you need to get things happening.

What's wrong with a celebration. In the current climate, being around for yet another year or 10 or twenty is worthy of celebration. Lots of money does not have to be spent and the opportunity to come together can be beneficial for all, promoting a nice sense of achievement. Only today I had a discussion with some of my team about planning for Barnsley Hospice's 20th anniversary in June 2014. Our 15th anniversary celebrations were a great success and I'm sure the 20th will be even better.