My young daughters were chuffed to bits when their godmother bought three little pigs from Christian Aid’s online giftshop, “Present Aid”.

When my wife explained to Nelly that the pigs were going to live in Nicaragua, she chirped back, “Mami, can we go and visit them there?” We hesitated. Hmm… good idea but better we go and look at a photo on the charity’s website! Naturally, Nelly wanted to know how the pigs’ new owners were treating them!

Of course, while we didn’t expect to be able to look at ‘our’ pigs, perhaps we could look at a photo and receive updates of the pigs progress?

The Present Aid website FAQ says:

At the time of purchase we cannot be certain as to what project your contribution will benefit. This means that we are unable to provide updates or photographs. For a more general update on how Christian Aid is spending your donation please visit www.christianaid.org.uk.

After Google’ing “La Labranza” I discovered that Christian Aid has been working in the mountain community for fifteen years alongside its partner organisation, the Community Movement of Matagalpa (MCM).

The Independent on Sunday (IoS) partnered with Christian Aid for its Christmas appeal. An article written by Katy Guest and headed “The healing power of happy pigs” tells the story of La Labranza through the lens of its inhabitants, including (very appropriately) a woman named Nelly…

Nelly lives in the northern region of Matagalpa, where the crops scent the air with spearmint and coffee, and children fill in holes in the roads in the hope of a lobbed coin from a passing driver. Her house is a mud construction with a tin roof – from a distance, it looks as if it has been thrown at the side of the hillside by a giant hand, and stuck. Its position is dizzyingly beautiful, but dangerous.

Now the gift card my daughters received includes some copy about how farmers in La Labranza “like Juan Rayos Sequira… looked forward to receiving a pig” from MCM, which he can use “to start a litter of piglets”. For every 12 piglets born, he passes on two to another family. Those left over provide him with both food and an income.

Katy writes more compellingly in the IoS…

In this area, 70 families have been given pigs with donations from MCM. They cheerfully forage around the hillsides, eating banana peel, spoiled vegetables and windfall chayote fruits. A community organiser, Ciriaco Ortiz, explains: “When little pigs are born, people give one back to the fund and one to their neighbour. Now there are 410 pigs.

I find all this interesting, as I read an article published in Professional Fundraising last month which identified that how “ethical gift funds” are spent varies from charity to charity.

Stances range from those such as the Good Gifts Catalogue which ensures the money is passed to the beneficiary in full and used solely for the purpose stated, to ensuring the money goes to the community the gift was intended to help, to merely contributing to the charity’s general fund.

I’m sure there’s some potential here, through visual storytelling, for my daughters to become more fully engaged with ‘the pig story’.

But it’s clear from FAQ number 29 on the Christian Aid website, that if you buy three pigs, the money goes directly to Christian Aid’s agriculture & livestock fund. Today… many days later, another glance at the gift card reveals that the money (that’s our daughters’ godmother’s money) will indeed “go into an agriculture and livestock fund to help… bring similar schemes to poor communities in the developing world”.

OK, so it’s there in the small print, but try explaining that to your five-year old daughter.

This little piggy went to market; this little piggy was in fact a can of worms.

No. I think not. Instead, I’ll tell Nelly (my daughter) about her namesake in La Labranza…

Nelly is fattening up her obliviously happy pig. The children chatter about planting trees as they cross the river on the way to school.

Ah, a happy ending.

[This is rather a long post - some might say ramble - but think of it as an introduction to some of the themes I intend to cover on this blog.]

It’s right that a charity mobilises and directs (donated) funds where it identifies there is greatest need. The ‘general purposes fund’ is something a charity will fight to protect at all costs. But this position is becoming more difficult to sustain.

The general public do not always understand how their donations are used by charities. Young people now prefer to fundraise for a cause, rather than donate to an organisation (do challenge this view if you think it incorrect). Increasingly, more discerning donors (or those with a lot of cash anyway) like to channel their donations through specific (and more glamorous) projects to measure their impact and effectiveness, in much the same way as they would any commercial investment.

These shifts in the ‘giving landscape’ will only accelerate. The image and reputation of charities will increasingly depend on their ability to demonstrate value and impact. Blogs and other forms of social media bring new opportunities (and some risks) to charities who are willing (and well equipped) to take advantage to further their mission.

This was the broad topic under discussion at a thought-provoking workshop held at NCVO on Thursday. We were brought together by Megan Griffith from NCVO’s Third Sector Foresight project. Some of the other contributors have already blogged about the session, including Molly Webb (Demos), Nick Booth (Podnosh), and David Wilcox.

I expressed a few opinions last week, which will attempt to share with you here.

We can all agree, I think, that the web has empowered individuals and invited more scrutiny into the work of organisations.

Charities are not immune from this evolution but they do have a secret weapon: compelling stories.

Some fifteen years ago, I frequently travelled around the UK for Oxfam talking to often quite large groups of the charity’s dedicated supporters about ‘third world debt’ and ‘structural adjustment’. Inevitably, I weaved in human stories from the ‘field’ to help illustrate the impact of these reforms on those living in poverty, the intended beneficiaries of Oxfam’s projects.

Intrinsic to good storytelling is the conversation that it generates. Dialogue always (or nearly always!) followed my ‘debt’ workshops.

Blogs and social media provide the best tool set yet to continue the conversation.

Let me return to the issue of donations and accountability for a moment. Back in the summer, Justgiving announced on their blog (aimed at their charity clients) that they had amended their terms and conditions “to make it clear to our individual users that their chosen recipient charity reserves the right to use the funds raised through our site for its general purposes, not a particular appeal.”

I found this interesting, not least because Justgiving has transformed the process of charitable giving in the UK. (Declaration of interest: I was on the Justgiving payroll, albeit very briefly, in 2002).

The public must know whether they are contributing to a particular project, or to the general work of the charity. Why does this matter? Crucial to answering this question is understanding what makes people tick.

Some have a personal connection to a charity or cause (e.g. cancer prevention); others of us will have been ‘emotionally engaged’ through images beamed back to us from a disaster zone.

Interestingly, despite younger people normally being the least likely to give to charity, polls taken soon after the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami tragedy indicated that a whopping 86% of 18-24 year olds said they gave money to a charity in response to the disaster.

Certainly the epic scale of that disaster pulled at heartstrings and loosened purse strings like nothing else since Bob Geldof’s Band Aid phenomenon a generation earlier.

I would still argue that most people now have a much looser affinity with an actual organisation – and “Generation Y” (or Generation “Why” as Oxfam would have it) use online social networking (and their mobile phone) as their primary method of communication (See “Email is for old people”). Causes and single-issue campaigns are arguably what build a movement and put ‘fire in the belly’ (but more about that another day).

Actually, I’ve just purchased the domain name – mycauses.org.uk – but will willingly give it up to any organisation which promises to use it wisely. Or I might sell it to MySpace if they agree to establish a “My Causes” tab on their social networking site!

I’m not suggesting charities ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’ and pull their existing fundraising campaigns. The old-fashioned collection tin remains the most popular way of giving to charity. I’m talking ‘baby steps’ here, poco a poco… although within a few years I do expect job roles and budgets to have been juggled around.

For example, I would encourage you to recruit a social media champion. This individual may already work for you. Find out who it is, tell them that he or she is now the charity’s ‘Buzz Director’, and ask them to identify where your key audiences gather online and join in the conversation.

I’ll be exploring how you do this on this blog.