S2 Episode 1: Spilling the Tea on UK Fundraising with Fixing Fundraising's Andy & Tom

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Episode Summary
The UK has had a foundational influence in building the problematic philanthropic and nonprofit sectors (Third Sector) in the US and other countries, which is why we are so happy to go straight to the source! Host Michelle Muri talks with Andy King and Tom DeFraine of UK podcast Fixing Fundraising! From topics like Captain Tom and the injustice of fundraising for government programs that should be funded by taxation, Brexit, the political nature of any nonprofit, dog whistles, the role of patronage in the UK, Prince Andrew’s fall from patronage, Prince Williams, a brief word about drones and fireworks, to the terrible practices the UK is adopting from the US...we promise you’ll chuckle or even laugh out loud! Yes, even in a pandemic. ​

Episode Notes
While many awful nonprofit practices exist, Andy and Tom are doing their work as responsible white men in our sector, to unpack what is really happening in nonprofits and philanthropy and use their platforms for good - so that we can all do better. So many great assets mentioned in this episode, here are links for content and definitions mentioned in the show:

• Michelle talks with the gentlemen of Fixing Fundraising podcast in the UK, Andy King and Tom DeFraine
• Hear their interview with Michelle and Vu Le, about Community Centric Fundraising!
• LinkedIn for Tom and Andy

References then Definitions: 

• Here is the article by Baroness Stowell, Chair of The Charity Commission, titled: “If you want to improve lives through charity, leave political fights out of it” (posted on the conservative site, The Daily Mail)
• (And here is an article by my colleague Cami Aurioles title “Nonprofits Can’t Engage In Political Advocacy At All, You Say? Wrong. We Can And We Must” as posted on CommunityCentricFundraising.org)
• London’s 2021 NYE Drone/Fireworks display was really amazing. This link is from BBC.
• Saddiq Khan, Mayor of London, took a lot of shit for allowing “political” content into the NYE celebration, there are dozens of videos and articles about it.
• Captain Tom (Moore) and his recognition that the NHS (National Health Service) wasn’t resourced well enough during this pandemic, as well as his instigation of a mega fundraising campaign (1.5 million individual donations totaling over $32.79M Pounds ($45.47M Dollars), was one of the topics we touched on. Captain Tom, at 100 years old, passed away from COVID-19 related illness on February 2nd, 2021. May he rest in peace.
• National Health Service Charities Together (NHS Charities Together)
• Andy recommends listening to the Do More Good podcast, and specifically, Episode 62 with Ellie Orton and NHS Charities Together
• The Royals: Prince Andrew’s fall from grace, Prince Williams is the patron for Centrepoint, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle moved to Hollywood and started this pod we haven’t listened to yet...
• Andy refers to this article “Having a royal patron doesn’t pay for charities” (open in incognito mode for easy access)
• As a side, Tom mentions that Tea came from India, but he probably meant that a lot of tea has been imported to the UK from India from the late 1800s on. Deeper history = England’s involvement in tea actually originated in China. Check out this riveting quick history. I promise it's worth it. You might learn that the East India Company intentionally got Chinese addicted to Opium in order to get tea for a price they could afford, which was the colonization of India. The story involves mass murder/war and slavery. Fucked up. And the reason why certain tea-growing regions (like Assam) are some of the economically and socially devastated places in the world. Sarah Rose’s has a brilliant book about it, called For All The Tea In China. It's okay. The way I grew up I thought tea was Iranian. #themoreyouknow

Definitions:

• The Charity Commision as defined by Andy: “...it's’ the gov’t body that checks that charities are doing with their money what they’re meant to be doing. They check that there’s no fraud, they check that there’s no corruption, and they check that everything is operating as it should. In principle, that’s a brilliant body to have. It should really help public trust in charity and it should be something that really keeps everyone moving towards the right goals. And you will notice that I have said should, rather than does.”
• “Fiat Money” as defined by Wikipedia is any money accepted by a government for paying taxes or debt, but is not pegged to or backed directly by gold or other valuables (fiat money systems have no gold standard. Fiat money does not have significant intrinsic value or use value (inherent utility, such as a cow or beaver pelt might have.” 
• “Barmy” as defined by Urban Dictionary, means eccentric, daft, insane, crazy, not quite right in the head
• RAF = Royal Air Force
• “Knighthood” Here are the “Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom”
• Brexit = In case you have been living under a rock since that awful day in 2016, the UK voted itself away from the EU for probably racist reasons including anti-immigrant sentiment. Here is an article about it. Oh and just like in the US after Trump’s election, racism became more overt in Britain as racists felt empowered by the move.
• “Fag packet” is really just a pack of cigarettes. Not a slur.
• “Patronage” = check out this definition 
• Mothers’ Union! We found out what it is.

• Gratitude to MUSICIAN  for letting us use their new song “I’m Gold" throughout this episode - 

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Transcript - Coming Soon 

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