The Chancellor’s proposal does not go far enough. That might include, say, gender workshops for local women’s organisations. As Oxfam put it, it merely offered the “idea of a goat” while reserving the right to divert the funds received in any way it saw fit. Turned out it was just an emotional ‘hook’ for more generalised giving. The poor, developing-world families were never actually likely to receive one.
If charity is a business, it is a protean kind, with a disingenuous tendency to blur the lines when it suits. So the people who gladly send ‘chuggers’ onto our streets – the contemporary equivalent of foot-in-the-door salesmen – wish us to think of them in the same light as hapless widows and orphans. Even charities of great wealth, such as Cancer Research UK, complain that the measures will deter giving. It is at times like these that the ‘business’ of charity changes its tune and assumes the demeanour of imploring supplicant. Cue much handwringing and gnashing of teeth. The Chancellor now seeks to apply a gentle brake on this by limiting tax relief on giving to £50,000, or one quarter of annual income, whichever is greater. The shortfall that arises from the diversion of your tax to the charity must be borne by all taxpayers.
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Whatever the charity you choose to enrich – Islamic Aid, The Piano Trio Society, the National Rifle Association – you will be allowed full income-tax relief on the amount you give, no matter how much that happens to be. Every time you do it, you force 30 million other people to do it with you. It is a consumption choice, however, with a highly unusual twist. This applies just as firmly, on a much larger scale, to the big philanthropic giver the act of donating millions to a public gallery devoted to the kind of art you happen to favour is not merely altruism, but also a means of projecting self. Like all consumption choices, the act of giving plays a role in self-identity. The person sitting with the charity Christmas catalogue in front of them might also have catalogues from Argos or John Lewis open precise choice is made from an asymmetrical repertoire in which commercial and not-for-profit brands compete. Second, charitable giving is a consumption choice. First, successful charities are at heart businesses, and the best of them display a highly nuanced approach to marketing (see panel). The goat is symbolic of two truths about charities and charitable giving.
It captured the imaginations of millions and earned a significant share of Christmas gift spend. Instead of wrapping up some possibly unwanted item of merchandise, you would buy a goat for a poor family in the developing world, and your loved one would open a fun card celebrating the good deed. One of the cleverest fundraising ideas devised by the charity sector was the Christmas goat.
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