29th September 2008, 09:50 AM
Quote:quote:
Well there are precedents for charities taking over other charities or merging. And there is even recent legislation (2006) that specifically addresses the matter of charities merging (see press release below)
http://www.charitytimes.com/pages/ct_fea...umbers.htm
As for the parallel with a charity paying staff to make income I don't see that as valid. Surely an archaeological charity that pays 90% of its income to staff carrying out the function of the charity i.e archaeology, is actually being efficient, rather than wasteful.
Interesting note about the mergers of other charities - I stand corrected.
However the second part only partially stands up - the remit of a company that is part of a larger charity surely cannot be 'archaeology', it is surely education or some worthy cause. I don't think a lack of archaeology is ranked very highly amongst the social injustices in the world. Using your example the entire remit of charities that had second hand shops would be to sell second hand stuff, full stop. The point of the commercial arm of a charity is to raise money to support the core aims of the charity (whatever they might be) not just to pay its own staff. Obviously if the expectation is that an archaeological company won't make any profit this seems a bit futile. I would assume that the education element of an educational charity doesn't extend to educating (i.e. training) its own staff as they are not the 'target'. I think of charities as helping the needy, and no matter how archaeologits might feel most are not that bad off in the grand scheme of things.
So what is to be made from this? I am probably wrong in many areas and look forward to being told as much, but my argument still remains that a system where you have several organisations doing essentially the same thing but with quite different structures is not helping those within it very much.