We’ve been talking a lot about lobbying and politicisation lately as the maelstrom around the Lobbying and Transparency Bill continues in a political and media environment. It was recently described by Acevo’s Stephen Bubb as the most “hostile” towards the sector in a decade. This week saw the news that NCVO and Acevo are urging more meaningful consultation with the sector on amendments to the bill, whilst the RSPCA have been in the headlines once again regarding their campaigning work and its potential impact on their brand health.

In the impassioned debate around the latter, a surreal stand-off between Two Fat Ladies TV chef Clarissa Dickson Wright in the red corner and animal rights activist Brian May of Queen in the blue appeared to loom tantalisingly close by last month - and it doesn’t get better than that.

But stepping back from the specifics of the bill (not to mention the image just conjured), let’s tackle the red herring here. Sections of the press and political establishment have portrayed charities’ political work as a distraction from ‘the cause’ at best and a dereliction of duty to donors at worst. As my colleagues on our parliamentary research team pointed out last week, some MPs have registered their irritation for years at ‘political interference’ by charities.

But to paraphrase comedian Mrs Merton’s famous words, “What was it that first attracted the Honourable Gentleman to a silent and complicit third sector?” Many MPs see such political engagement as positive or at least neutral. And more pertinently, this remains a non-issue for the public, despite the efforts to rally their outrage.

In our Charity Awareness Monitor research, we’re surrounded by figures and factoids about our giving habits, whims, attitudes and quirks (for yes, the shocking truth is that both researchers and charity staff alike are part of that daunting mass ‘The Public’…). So from the data-frontline at nfp Towers, here’s a reminder of what really bothers people when it comes to charities and threatens to derail their giving.

• Money not going to ‘the cause’ (however we understand it) (62%)
• Pricey re-brands (72%)
• Perceptions of ‘wasteful’ London head offices (74%)
• Over-persistent fundraisers (46%)
• And, of course, as the last few months have made painfully clear, the picture conjured in the media of ‘fat cat’ charity bosses creaming off the proceeds of our hard-earned donations. 53% of the public are put off by concerns about excessive staff salaries, while 40% don’t think Chief Executives should be paid in the first place.

Things not arousing our ire? Not being contacted after we donate (5%). Our own lack of spare money (1%). And - wait for it - the charity campaigning to change the law putting just 4% of the public off giving.

So what does this tell us? Firstly it shows that, while questions around charity spending and accountability are crucial (trust matters enormously and it’s in short supply in these years of economic crisis and widening income disparities), the key issue is defensibility. Not total transparency necessarily, but the ability to proactively explain and defend your spending decisions to your staff, donors and the public at large.

You are not going to stop paying senior personnel at a level necessary to secure the right talent. Your brand positioning may have been in serious need of an overhaul for years. You know that certain fundraising methods get results, however unpopular. All areas have an incalculable impact on your income and reach and can’t be at the mercy of shifting tides of opinion.

But what you can do is ask yourself if you can honestly justify to the volunteers who give up their time to care for service users or to help you fundraise exactly how your CEO brings this level of value to the organisation. Can you explain in good conscience to someone maintaining a direct debit - even as their wages are frozen and their housing costs escalate - how your rebrand will generate even more voluntary income and enable you to reach more vulnerable people than ever?

Where the answer is no, there is a real problem to address. However, where this case can be made with integrity, you must accept the challenge of educating donors about the context you operate in and how your work gets done.

Secondly, of the many, many things that can put us off charities and enable us to rationalise our decisions not to give, the data emphatically shows that political engagement is not one of them. Even when we phrase the question differently and use the more contentious word ‘lobbying’, just 15% view this as wasteful. And I’m going to go out on a limb to venture that this is because as a society, we recognise the fact that the work of most charities is inherently political. Political in both the small ‘p’ sense - how we order the world we live in and construct our relationships with one another – as well as in the more specific intersection of charities’ work with legislators and our legal systems.

I want to reduce world hunger. I want children to grow up safe, educated and cared for. I want to ensure everyone has access to secure and affordable housing. I want the natural world to be protected for the next generation. These are the aspirations we express by engaging with charities; we are both committing to the value and, in a sense, outsourcing it. We are saying, I trust you to fight this battle for me – take my donation or my time and help me channel it towards the goals we share. And who is the donor who does not recognise that fighting child poverty involves lobbying policy-makers on welfare, child care provision and the housing stock? Who is the donor that can’t see the link between protecting animals or the environment and influencing the legislators and companies in a position to change things?

There is a tendency in our public life to portray ‘The Public’ as a slightly oafish, selfish and under-informed mass. But this is not a public I recognise from the data we gather month in month out, much less is it the typical charity donor. Misperception certainly exists, on an alarming scale for some issues, but this is exactly why it matters so much that charities stay the course to educate and to battle on our behalf. Speaking truth to power on the implications of policy and keeping us informed as a society of the harms we may be ignorant of has never been more crucial. And these are inherently political jobs.

More than 3 in 4 of us donated to charity this summer. Despite economic gloom, the same number expect to give as much or more this year than last. 1 in 5 of us volunteered and 1 in 4 have been a paying member of a charity at some point. Meanwhile, almost 6 in 10 would recommend the charities they support to others, an endorsement most political parties can only dream of. That’s your mandate – don’t let them down.

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