Our Charitable Children - Engaging Children in Charities and Charitable Giving

Why charitable donors give has been a topic of much debate among practitioners, policy makers and academics alike. Recent efforts to grow and strengthen the culture of charitable giving in the UK have focused on increasing people’s propensity to give and the total amounts they are likely to give. However little attention has been paid to how people learn to give at a younger age. Given early education is fundamental in securing individuals long-term social and political orientations, this is a critical oversight. The absence of much commentary on, or significant research into, how individuals are socialised into giving, specifically younger children, means we have little knowledge about how people come to be the donors we pay so much attention to later in life. In this report we situate charitable giving as part of much larger debate on children’s active engagement within civil society and their role as competent and active social actors. This research report engages the voices of over 150 young children aged 4-8 years old. Through participative action research methods, we explore their perceptions and preferences of charity and charitable giving. We explore the trends across the age group and discuss how children may develop philanthropic behaviours. We start our findings celebrating children’s knowledge and involvement in charities. We found they have a wide and varied range of opportunities to engage in fundraising and charitable giving through schools, communities and the family. However, we also suggest that children have relatively limited spaces to meaningfully engage in these charitable behaviours, often associating giving as a transactional process without critically engaging with the cause. Nonetheless, when given opportunity to meaningfully engage in giving decisions children demonstrated a heightened critical consciousness and desire for increased social justice in their giving decisions. Importantly we argue that conscious, active and participative engagement in giving decisions helps children develop a critical consciousness about the world around them and increases social orientated behaviours. We promote the idea that children, as present citizens (as opposed to viewed as future citizens only), are capable and competent of selecting and assessing the charities they wish to support, and in turn this helps them develop a greater understanding of the world around them

The Commissioners Perspective: The Lived Realities of Commissioning Children’s Preventative Services in England and the Role of Discretion

Commissioning remains the dominant process by which England’s state and third sector financial relationships are managed, attracting much criticism and debate. In response, the Civil Society Strategy (2018) has called for a renewed focus on collaborative commissioning arrangements. However, the absence of much comment on Commissioners suggests we have not paid enough attention to the role of the individuals who manage these processes. Semi-structured interviews with fifteen Commissioners, responsible for children’s preventative services provides new empirical evidence. Drawing on the notion of vertical discretion, that is an individual’s freedom from external control, versus horizontal discretion, that is an individuals’ freedom for decision-making this paper presents evidence on how Commissioners influence, and in some cases even circumvent, the commissioning process. Findings highlight that greater consideration of the role discretion in commissioning processes can add some insight into how more collaborative commissioning arrangements may be achieved at a local level

Our Charitable Children: Engaging Children in Charities and Charitable Giving

Why charitable donors give has been a topic of much debate amongst practitioners, policy makers and academics alike. Recent efforts to grow and strengthen the culture of charitable giving in the UK have focused on increasing people's propensity to give and the total amounts they are likely to give. However little attention has been paid to how people learn to give at a younger age. Given early education is fundamental in securing individuals long-term social and political orientations, this is a critical oversight. The absence of much commentary on, or significant research into, how individuals are socialised into giving, specifically younger children, means we have little knowledge about how people come to be the donors we pay so much attention to later in life.In this report we situate charitable giving as part of much larger debate on children's active engagement within civil society and their role as competent and active social actors.This research report engages the voices of over 150 young children aged 4-8 years old. Through participative action research methods, we explore their perceptions and preferences of charity and charitable giving. We explore the trends across the age group and discuss how children may develop philanthropic behaviours.We start our findings celebrating children's knowledge and involvement in charities. We found they have a wide and varied range of opportunities to engage in fundraising and charitable giving through schools, communities and the family. However, we also suggest that children have relatively limited spaces to meaningfully engage in these charitable behaviours, often associating giving as a transactional process without critically engaging with the cause. Nonetheless, when given opportunity to meaningfully engage in giving decisions children demonstrated a heightened critical consciousness and desire for increased social justice in their giving decisions.Importantly we argue that conscious, active and participative engagement in giving decisions helps children develop a critical consciousness about the world around them and increases social orientated behaviours. We promote the idea that children, as present citizens (as opposed to viewed as future citizens only), are capable and competent of selecting and assessing the charities they wish to support, and in turn this helps them develop a greater understanding of the world around them

Rapid Research Review into Civic Socialisation Amongst Pre-Secondary School Age Children

This rapid research review offers oversight of key evidence-based literature exploring civic socialisation amongst pre-secondary school aged children. The dominant themes within this literature suggest that whilst the periods of early and middle childhood are fundamentally important to the civic socialisation of individuals, they are largely overlooked by research, policy and practice, creating a significant gap in our understanding about individuals’ civic journey throughout the life-course. Drawing on some of the emerging research within the UK and beyond we can begin to consider the opportunities and barriers to civic socialisation for pre-secondary aged children. The existing evidence base tells us the civic socialisation of infant and primary school aged children is key both as citizens of today and as future adult citizens. We know increased pro-active civic engagement at a young age leads to propensity to engage in pro-civic behaviours when older, for example social action, volunteering, charitable giving, philanthropy, and democratic participation. However, the research also points to different approaches having greater impact at different stages. For example, storytelling, role-playing and practicing ‘civic-ness’ in everyday life (such as shared decision-making, critical questioning and thinking, sharing of resources, etc.) within the early and infant years help younger children develop vital political and civil literacies. Whereas experiential, participative, child-led, action-based learning, underpinned by critical thinking and discussions within middle childhood is shown to help children develop as social and political actors within a real-world context. Although there is some evidence to suggest individual experiential, child-led structured programmes in social action and civic learning are impactful, there is a lack of broader qualitative, quantitative and longitudinal data to draw more conclusive assessment at this point, especially within a UK context. Nonetheless, emerging data suggests, that unlike adolescents who have had wider scale programmes such as the #iwill campaign and National Citizens Service, opportunities for children’s engagement in civic learning are uncoordinated, unequal and commonly not rooted in evidence-based practice, with children from lower socio-economic areas experiencing fewer opportunities for civic engagement. There is also a significant gap in knowledge concerning programmes and initiatives which connect and cohere as children pass through infant and primary school into secondary education, alongside a lack of understanding about the impact of digital technologies on civic engagement. In conclusion, this review suggest that young children’s civic socialisation should become a research,policy and practice priority

What are 'unpopular causes' and how can they achieve fundraising success?

Recent efforts to grow and strengthen the culture of philanthropy in the UK have largely focused on two dimensions: the total amount of money donated and the effectiveness of philanthropic spending. This paper explores a third dimension: the destination and distribution of donations. A defining characteristic of charitable giving is that it is voluntary rather than coerced, and the resulting respect for donor autonomy makes people wary of promoting one cause above another or implying that any beneficiary group is more or less ‘worthy’ of support. However, the absence of much comment on, or significant research into, the destination of donations does not alter the fact that some groups succeed in attracting significant philanthropic funds whilst others struggle to secure many—or any—donations. This paper explores the concept of ‘unpopularity’ in the charity sector, especially in relation to its impact on fundraising. We unpack what this loaded phrase means, identify good practice by those seeking support and present case studies of charities that have overcome perceived unpopularity to achieve success in raising voluntary income. We suggest that by investing organisational resources and effort in fundraising, by framing the cause to maximise the arousal of sympathy and minimise concerns about beneficiary culpability and by avoiding the unintended negative consequences of self-labelling as ‘unpopular’ no charity need assume it is their destiny to languish at the bottom of the fundraising league tables

Rising to the Challenge: Fundraising for Unpopular Causes

This report makes a contribution to understanding the distribution of philanthropic support, alongside whether and how it can be altered in favour of causes that are perceived to be less popular. The introduction sets the scene by describing the current distribution of voluntary income to different charitable beneficiaries in the UK. This is followed by a review of insights from research into charitable giving and how it helps us to better understand the distributional pattern of donations. Chapters 4 and 5 identify barriers that affect the positioning of causes and their ability to attract voluntary donations, with ten case studies illustrating how they have succeeded in surmounting those barriers and countered prevailing trends. The final section summarises what can be done to increase the flow of donated funds to charities that feel themselves to be ‘unpopular causes’, and the report ends with a useful tool to help charities understand which barriers may be preventing them from maximising their philanthropic income

Rising to the Challenge: Fundraising for Unpopular Causes

This report makes a contribution to understanding the distribution of philanthropic support, alongside whether and how it can be altered in favour of causes that are perceived to be less popular. The introduction sets the scene by describing the current distribution of voluntary income to different charitable beneficiaries in the UK. This is followed by a review of insights from research into charitable giving and how it helps us to better understand the distributional pattern of donations. Chapters 4 and 5 identify barriers that affect the positioning of causes and their ability to attract voluntary donations, with ten case studies illustrating how they have succeeded in surmounting those barriers and countered prevailing trends. The final section summarises what can be done to increase the flow of donated funds to charities that feel themselves to be ‘unpopular causes’, and the report ends with a useful tool to help charities understand which barriers may be preventing them from maximising their philanthropic income

Philanthropic tales: A critical analysis of how philanthropic citizenship is represented in children’s picture-books – problems and possibilities

In this article we critically question how philanthropic citizenship is represented within children’s literature. Critical content analysis of over 100 western children’s picture-books reveals that the majority of children’s contemporary literature frames philanthropy as an individual act of personal responsibility which takes place in the private sphere, focusing on singular acts of kindness and generosity, overlooking connections between the cause and wider societal socioeconomic, political, environmental and/or social justice issues. Furthermore, many stories reinforce concerning traditional and stereotypical ideas of gender, race, and power. Nonetheless, we also identify several books which notably seek to move beyond this, connecting acts of philanthropy to wider ideological, economic, and political factors, placing a strong emphasis on social justice. In conclusion, we call for further research to explore how philanthropic stories are used within the home and classroom, and what children interpret as the ‘good philanthropic citizen’ through these stories