Charities Get Wake Up Call

A year ago I wrote to the UK national mental health charity Mind, which recently sat on the Remploy Taskforce and supported massive factory closures and job losses 'on behalf' of Remploy's disabled workers , and politely asked why its Director Paul Farmer wasnt blogging what Mind was doing to keep its service users , donors and supporters abreast of what the organisation was up to and enable them to inform the charity's decisions.

It was a good question.

It went unanswered though because Mr Farmer, who has boasted in the national press about his ambition to transform Mind into the UK's foremost MH service provider, does not view making his charity accountable to the people he gets funded to provide services for and serve as part of his job description. The assumption is , Mind can be a largescale service provider and represent the interests of its service users.

That's a pretty unrealistic assumption.

The GMB Union has taken up the case of the Remploy workers Mind and the five other disability charities on the Remploy Taskforce helped decide out of their jobs . One union leader expressed his disgust at the way these charities made top down decisions about the workers without even talking to them.

People should not be suprised by this though as many MH and learning difficulties charities operate in this arrogant and patronising top down way. Unfortunately , the Paul Farmers of this world think they know whats best for disabled people. He'll talk to the press at the drop of a hat but not to the people his charity is funded to serve.

Well, thats about to change as Project Agape has just launched 'Causes' on Facebook , a popular social network with 20 million plus users, which enables good causes to directly raise money from their supporters but just as important, because of the nature of social networks, it also allows people who support causes to find out and question what organisations , groups and individuals are actually doing with the money donated to them.

If I'm giving money to a charity, I want to be able to ask what its going to be used for , to get the views of its intended beneficiaries and make sure that my money gets to them rather than vanishes in staff salaries , perks and bureaucracy along the way.

Facebooks 'Causes' network and hopefully, copycat social applications like it should enable grassroots organisations to get a look in as well. This is crucially important as many of the big disability charities now sit on Government advisory bodies and simply roll out Government policy to secure Government contracts . Local causes often dont get any exposure or funding at all because the media and larger grant awarding bodies find it easier to thrust attention and cash at the corporates without much scrutiny or any real auditing for effectiveness.

I just tried to contact Mind, which describes itself as the 'UK's leading MH charity ', from the contact details on its website and got sent to a standalone MH infoline in Manchester where an operator begrudgingly told me ' it wasnt a switchboard ' and after a bit of grumbling gave me the number of Carol Bradbury, Mind's administrator , 0208 2152207 but every time I called I was sent straight to an answering machine.

Professional organisations often guarantee to answer calls within a certain amount of rings. I've been trying to contact Mind for hours. Its pointless phoning them. Mind doesnt want to hear what you have to say!


A national charity thats basically uncontactable!

It's very easy to see how Mind and other charities drift towards representing the interests and career prospects of those who work for them .

Mind national office is also closed now until Wednesday. Monday is a national holiday in the UK, Mind's staff are just taking the Tuesday off because they can. It's pretty contemptuous of those who fund Mind or may find themselves needing to contact them isnt it?

Now imagine if the six charities on the Remploy Taskforce had been accountable to the people they claimed to be acting on behalf of.

Imagine if the 2000 odd disabled Remploy workers whose jobs Mind helped decide away had been able to speak directly to that charity's funders about the audacity and unfairness of Mind supporting that decision on their behalf.

This is a disruptive. The charity sector just got dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century and Paul Farmer volunteered himself as the selfish unacceptable face of the disability charity sector as he clearly lacks the imagination to move his organisation forward and put the needs of the people it claims to serve first, because if he had his blog would be attracting additional interest in MH issues and funding and Mind would be promoting itself on Facebook's Causes network instead of gearing up for the extra paid days holiday Paul Farmer and his corporate executives obviously think they deserve.

Well relax and enjoy the break Mr Farmer, you made it on to the causes page anyway.

Here are the names of the other charities and organisations connected with the Remploy Taskforce.

Mencap
Scope
Disability Rights Commission
Papworth Trust
Opportunities
Work Directions
Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health


I am copying this to Mind and the Charity Commission as a formal complaint. If Mind , which is currently celebrating its 60th anniversary , simply wants to be the UK's biggest MH service provider that's great but people need to know that it does not represent the interests of people with MH issues it makes money off them as essentially its not a charity its a business with charitable status.

I have invited Paul Farmer to respond .