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Written by Peter Bennett-Jones, former Chair of Comic Relief
Turning the spotlight on the governance, ethics and performance of charities, as BBC's One's Panorama, All in a Good Cause will do on Tuesday evening, is a legitimate exercise.
Charities the size of Comic Relief are, in effect, large businesses where the bottom line isn't making money but making a difference. Like any good, modern organisation, transparency and the trust of the public is right at the top of our agenda. We welcome scrutiny and always have done.
In the UK, where a higher proportion of the population gives money to charity than in almost any other country, that transparency is crucial, just as it is that the debate and discussion around how organisations like Comic Relief are run needs to be based on fact.
As someone who has had the privilege to chair the Comic Relief trustee board from 1998 until earlier this year, I'm perhaps in as good a position as anyone to outline those facts. During my time in office I was responsible for overseeing the governance of an organisation with the noble but ambitious aim of eradicating poverty.
The vast majority of the grants we make to help realise that aim are paid in instalments over a number of years so that we can monitor them and check, year by year, that the money is being spent properly.
This is widely accepted as the most professional and safest way to make grants and, perhaps more importantly, is just common sense. Spending the money as quickly as possible in one-off lump sums would be irresponsible.
This system is extremely robust and effective. I have attended and monitored scores of our expert UK and international grants committee meetings over the years to ensure that our pact with the public, our donors and partners is honoured to the full. I can assure you that it is.
This approach and the accountability it creates means we are at any one time left with large sums of money waiting to be paid out to charities – and we've thought long and hard about how best to look after and utilise these funds.
The Charity Commission guidance is quite clear that trustees must invest for the best possible financial return, while taking a level of risk appropriate for money in their care. They should only adopt an ethical investment approach with specific justification and not on the grounds of individual moral views.
This sounds counterintuitive, but it is the law. The broader the issues a charity supports the more difficult it is to justify ethically screened investment – as the range of industries that might need to be excluded would seriously impact on the fundamental requirement to maximise returns.
And for Comic Relief, whose aim is to fight poverty and social injustice, the breadth of issues we seek to address is significant.
A single-issue charity, such as those fighting climate change or supporting those facing cancer, would find it easier to justify an ethical approach as they can argue that a particular investment would run counter to its more focused mission.
That is why our trustees decided to invest in large managed funds administered by experts, as many other leading charities and pension funds do. We choose not to invest directly in individual companies, we choose not to take chances with the public's money in overly risky investments and we choose not to stick it under our mattress where it would generate no income and be eaten away by inflation. An independent analysis shows that our approach has delivered strong returns at a lower risk than any other charity assessed.
We are eternally grateful for the generosity of the public. Their astonishing support has helped us double our fundraising income in the last five years and we take enormous care when dealing with their donations.
We also put huge effort into keeping our costs under close control while remaining ambitious. Despite the tough economic environment for charities, for every £1 we spend on generating funds we bring in £6, twice the sector average.
The returns from our investments have helped us ensure that none of these costs have been paid for by money donated directly by the public. This means we can promise that every pound they have donated has gone towards making grants of more than £800m, to make real change to the lives of poor and vulnerable people.
All involved are rightly proud of this fact. We make all of our decisions with one clear aim: to turn the public's truly incredible levels of compassion and generosity into tangible action that delivers the best possible outcomes for people who need our help the most.
Something I have witnessed, numerous times, at numerous projects here in the UK and around the world.
As an organisation do we get every decision correct all of the time? Of course not; who does? But we get a lot more right than wrong and we are always well motivated and we are very effective. Do we operate in a perfect world? Clearly not, but we make decisions in good faith and with integrity.
Comic Relief, through the spirit of its supporters and its partnership with the BBC, has helped to increase charitable giving these past 25 years and make giving fun and effective to all generations. It has helped us appreciate that we can all do our bit to redress inequality in the lottery of life, close to home or far afield.
Everyone who has ever given a penny to Comic Relief should be extremely proud of what they have achieved and been part of creating. This uniquely British institution has helped transform the lives of millions and proved beyond doubt that even in today's harsh world we have the capacity to care for each other, not because we are expected to, but because it is the right thing to do.
To answer Panorama's core question, all in a good cause?
Absolutely; there simply isn't a better one.
Peter Bennett-Jones is the former Comic Relief chair of trustees
