Charity Watchdogs - How much do they benefit society?

It is a great service to society to have a charity watchdog. Society is able to rest its concerns of any mismanagement of funds or corrupt organizations as they know an authority body is keeping tabs on what the charity organizations are doing. Recently, the Commissioner of Charities was given new powers and it showed its muscle by shutting down three charities, namely the Children of Singapore Foundation, Children’s Lukaemia Foundation Limited and Club Sunshine Limited. It also refused to grant charity status for the Kidney Fund Organisation. The three charities that were shut down were found to be suspiciously run and one did not even have any staff. The Kidney Fund Foundation was said to have not been channeling the majority of its collected donations towards its stated charitable aims. In this way, it sends a strong signal to charities to handle the public’s donations in a responsible manner and also to deter corruption in the charities sector. The public will then feel safer to donate to charities as they know that their money will go towards charitable causes and not into the pockets of greedy organisations.

However, one glaring problem faced is that shutting down a corrupt charity will deny help permanently to the people the charity was supposed to render help to. For example, shutting down the Children’s Leukemia Foundation also means that now the children suffering from leukemia now have no organisation to oversee them by collecting funds for them. The charity watchdog should remember that though it serves public interests by keeping the charities sector clean, it should not forget the needs of those in need.