For those who don't know, Kevin Donovan is an investigative reporter for the Toronto Star. For more than a year now, Mr. Donovan has published a variety of scathing articles about the practices and policies of a variety of Canadian charities. The headlines for his stories are predictably provocative and very well positioned to take advantage of our propensity to respond to negativity:
- Heart-stroke charity builds huge war chest
- Charitable empire has high costs
- Charity's ploy "horrifying"
And the list goes on and on. Mr. Donovan asks some very good questions of the charities he investigates. Everyone should ask good questions of the charities they support. It is unquestionably important that charities act ethically and fulfill their mandate in a transparent manner. Mark Blumberg, a partner with the lawfirm of Blumberg Segal LLP, discusses Donovans' articles on his lawfirms website. He makes a number of excellent points regarding the concerns raised by Mr. Donovan and the instances of abuse that are found within the charitable sector. Mr. Blumberg suggests that perhaps Donovan is "just a canary in a coal mine". I have difficulties with this analogy.
The canary in the coal mine
As any good coal miner can tell you, the song of a canary is representative of safety. It's a welcome song. It is happy and upbeat... it's tone and tempo are positive. The song of the canary represents life, clean air and another day of prosperty for miners. Donovans' song, on the other hand, is all too frequently, doom and gloom. This isn't the song of a canary. This is the opportunistic screech of a vulture. The shrill warnings and selective fact finding and writing in Donovans's articles are not aimed to motivate thoughtful planned giving. These articles aren't written to assist people with identifying the thousands of wonderful charities across Canada who work tirelessly to achieve their good works while maintaining unquestionable ethics. Instead, it appears that these are articles aimed to heighten emotions, increase advertising values for his newspaper and raise Mr. Donovans' profile as a journalist.
Publishing or Politics?
When I look at Mr. Donovans' published stories and their accompanying headlines, I'm reminded of political campaign ads. All too often within the world of politics we see half-truths, facts left out, and emphasis on emotionally driven subjects that are known to capture the ever decreasing attention span of the public. Donovans' "news publishing" tactics are no different. He (or his editors) have spent more than a year highlighting negative stories. I found only 2 examples of positive stories and one of those was in response to an earlier negative story. This is not the song of a canary. Whatever Mr. Donovans' personal intent, the outcome of his opportunistic screech, may well be the death knell for many small charities. It's important to remember that the real victims of Donovans' political style articles aren't the nameless, faceless charities he investigates - they are little charities, the volunteer run charities.. they are the people, pets, and animals, who will suffer, go hungry, freeze and possibly die this winter.
As Mr. Blumberg works through the issues and concerns in his web-site article, he asks: "why some of the reputable charities seem to feel the need to defend the "sector". Well Mr. Blumberg - if the canary in the coal mine won't help keep you safe - who will?
Clearly it's absolutely necessary to weed-out wrong doers in the charitable sector. Nobody is opposed to investigations which work towards ensuring that charities achieve their goals and manage their organizations in an ethical and respectful manner. However, lets not take a page from political campaign strategies and frighten the world into believing that most charities are mismanaging funds or scamming people out of their hard-earned money. Lets present some balance.
I'd dearly love to refer to Mr. Donovan as the canary in the coal mine. However, until he starts singing just a few more positive songs and encouraging people to give to responsible charities, and promoting more responsible charities (not just the large ones)... he remains to me no better than an opportunistic, screeching vulture; picking away at whatever he can find for his own means and ends.
Perhaps in the new year, Mr. Donovan will grow some prettier feathers and give me cause to change my thoughts....
Did you find this blog to be a little "one-sided", "over the top", or "unbalanced"? Was it oozing in negativity? Well gee, I wonder where I got that technique from?
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