I will confess to being a recent convert. I love working with a recruitment agency to find new trustees. The quality of applicants and the inclusiveness of the process improve the governance process beyond measure. Indeed, I now am of the belief that the sector should no more appoint a trustee without an open and transparent recruitment process, than they should a CEO.

How charities spend their money remains a key concern for current and potential donors. In this report we examine how a selected sample of UK charities present their key financial information to the general public, exploring both the content and form of this information. We find that it is clear charities are working hard to demonstrate how much they are achieving through the income they raise and how efficiently this is being done. However, there are a number of recurrent issues that are worth highlighting: 

It's Christmas time and as per tradition we're giving away 12 more of our reports. They address key issues like lobbying, fundraising and trust, plus a couple of niche ones like Gift Aid and media spending. Enjoy!

An overview of how transparent 50 UK charities are, based on the investigations of nfpSynergy's researchers.

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The idea that the information the public wants should be both available and easily accessible has been encapsulated in a new buzzword - transparency. Since the CEO salary media storm back in 2013, many charities claimed they're now transparent. But is this really the case? How long does it take to find out a CEO's salary or how much a charity spends on admin? 

We've been sending out quite a few free reports recently, so we thought we'd put them all in one convenient place. Here's a preview of what's available:

The Politics of Charities

What do the public think about charities having the right to lobby? And what does it mean to MPs and journalists for charities to 'be political'?

Global Digital Fundraising

Global communication has opened up new opportunities to engage with communities and key audiences. So what does this mean for non-profits in different environments?

Cian Murphy & Tim Harrison-Byrne

If you’ve got this far, you’ll have noticed there’s something different about our website this week. This redesign – smart (and overdue!) as we think it is – feeds into a broader change, touching on every level of our company. After 20 years of working with charity clients big and small, we’ve decided it’s time for a rebrand. nfpSynergy is no more – say hello to nfpResearch.

We've released a brand new report that reviews research on how to measure staff engagement and why it's so important. 

Last week CAF released a report saying that the public has given an extra £800m during the first six months of this year, compared to last. The research flows against the tide of almost all other research carried out during Covid. This week's blog looks at the reasons why CAF's research needs to be interrogated and treated with caution. 

In this week's blog, Max Roche looks at some potential methods of quantifying charity CEO earnings beyond our fixation with the number of zeros at the end of the salary.