The Kruger report: where it falls short

It’s the report everyone in the charity sector is talking about.

Former charity leader and current MP Danny Kruger reviews how the government can best utilise the charity sector in the UK. It’s a report written in the shadow of COVID, but its remit is broader. The report sets out a number of recommendations under the headings Power, People and Places, and has been largely welcomed by charities. Some have been critical of the government for not yet making any commitments to support the ideas and recommendations the report contains. 

We at SoGive also welcome much of what the report says. In particular, we welcome the report’s criticisms of existing government data infrastructure, and the request for more.

But we think it doesn’t go far enough.

Kruger is right to say that, as Rachel Rank has pointed out, it is currently not possible to answer these questions: 

‘How many charities are registered in areas of high multiple deprivation? How many grants has government provided to those areas, what for, what is the average size of those charities and the grants made? Who else has provided funding to that region and/or those government grantees? How many of those charities are providing front-line services and how many have commercial arms, e.g. a shop, café, etc?’. 

But there’s an even more important question which we don’t have answers to:

‘How much good are the charities doing?’

When we talk about data, we can’t forget that charities exist to actually make the world a better place. In the language of the sector, they exist to achieve “impact”.

Kruger perhaps didn’t go there because he thought this problem belongs in the “Too Difficult” box.

But SoGive is demonstrating that we *can* make traction on this problem. 

We at SoGive are gathering data on how much impact is being made by each charity, and using that to assign ratings to the charities -- Gold, Silver, and Bronze -- to assess how much good they are doing.

Don’t get me wrong -- the sector has a long way to go -- but the data that we have (which still needs much more improvement and investment) is already adding value.

The Kruger report is falling short on impact data. And government needs to recognise the value of this and put it at the heart of its strategy.