CharityComms

By Paul Jump |Third Sector Online | 6 July 2007

The majority of respondents to a Third Sector poll believe that CharityComms, the new charity communications institute, is unnecessary.

Last week it was announced that the institute would be launched in the autumn, with a brief to promote best practice among voluntary sector communications staff and establish qualifications and professional development standards.

However, in a Third Sector Online poll, 65 per cent of respondents echoed the views of Fifth Estate, a sectoral group of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and the Institute of Fundraising's PR in Fundraising special interest group that the institute was not needed.

CharityComms is an initiative led by Joe Saxton, chair of the Institute of Fundraising and founder of research company NfpSynergy. Saxton said he was primarily interested in the views of people who work in communications, and those he had spoken to had all been very positive.

He said: "We are only just starting but the people we have talked to are interested and excited about our communications work."

However, he admitted that he needed to speak to more people before finalising plans for the institute. "We are a tiny organisation and we have to do some communicating ourselves," he said.