Sunday 7 February 2010

How does it add up?



The last few days the National Secular Society has been getting a considerable amount of national media coverage - Cherie Blair's act of judicial mercy, the cost of the Pope's visit and so on.... That suggests an extremely effective lobbying group, one that has now become the media's sound-bite of choice when they are looking for a counter to a "religious" news story. A visit to their website similarly suggests a well-organised operation.
It says on their website that NSS is reliant entirely on donations for its continued survival. I visited the link to see how one could make a donation. To my surprise there was no opportunity to Gift Aid one's donation. Well, that put paid to one assumption: that the NSS is a registered charity, a view which seemed to be confirmed when a search of the Charities Commission website also drew a blank. If that is the case, fair play to them as it would be incompatible with their principles if they were able to use the tax advantages used by charities to supplement donations.
But it raises another question: how does the NSS survive financially? If anyone is reading perhaps they could let me know: my search capability does not extend much beyond the NSS website or Google. Better still if anyone has a set of their last financial statements (or knows where to get them) I would be very grateful.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good post; I wonder if the NSS is set up as a company, then.

If so, I think Companies House will, for a small fee, offer you details of their accounts.

I'm not suprised they are well off: many rich famous, especially gay, people love to stick the boot into the church at every opportunity.

The reason that their communication and media campaigns are so great is they pick eloquent people trained in rhetorical skills to represent them in deabates.

I winced through Anne Atkins' cringeworthy attempts to debate the Cherie Booth
controversy last week on Radio 4 with A. C. Grayling.

Tonight on Channel 4 Anne Widdecombe will be proposing that Biblical law, or rather her own idiosyncratic interpretation of those laws, should be the basis of UK law.

"Doris Karloff" will debate the issue with Peter Hitchens and Stephen Fry..... Sorry, I meant to type " will make a fool of herself and our fellow Christians ...."

With friends like these .....