49. How to spot a charity that's a red flag (and how to give smarter) | John Spiers

Summary

Podcast Summary:

James Reed: All About Business, Ep. 49 – How to Spot a Charity That's a Red Flag (and How to Give Smarter) | John Spiers
Date: October 27, 2025
Host: James Reed CBE (A)
Guest: John Spiers (B), Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Founder of EQ Investors

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode explores how individuals—particularly business leaders and philanthropists—can become more effective and discerning charitable givers. John Spiers shares his deep experience in both entrepreneurial and philanthropic sectors, offering practical advice on identifying high-impact charities, understanding new business structures like "philanthropy companies", and getting the most out of charitable efforts, both personally and societally. The episode provides listeners with specific frameworks and warning signs for charity selection, leadership lessons from social enterprise, and ideas for leveraging technology and data for smarter giving.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "Philanthropy Company" Model (00:00–09:30)

• What is EQ Investors?
  • A wealth management business focused on running with "emotional quotient"—prioritizing long-term relationships and impact over pure profit. (01:39)
• Company Structure as a 'Phil Co' (Philanthropy Company):
  • EQ Foundation (a registered charity) owns ~25% of the business for long-term stability and to reinforce the firm’s impact-driven ethos (03:02–03:51).
  • Pros: Boosts client trust, provides culture of integrity.
  • Cons: Charities as passive shareholders, pressure for regular dividends, inability to inject capital during growth, not suited to all business models (03:55–04:50).
• Market Distinction & Trust:
  • Unique ownership structure helps build—and maintain—deep client trust, a "jigsaw piece" rather than a silver bullet (05:03–05:33).
• Why He Set It Up:
  • Initial idea was annual profit gifting, but found market skepticism ("You must be charging me too much"), so shifted to structural share gifting instead (06:10–06:23).
  • “When something’s new and people don’t understand it, we’re in a world where people often tend to think, well, there’s something, you know, this sounds a bit weird. It’s probably not good.” — John Spiers (06:10)

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2. How to Spot and Support High-Impact Charities (08:06–15:03, 19:01–32:33)

• Core Criteria for Effective Giving:
  • Focus on impact achieved, not admin costs or CEO salary.
  • “Far better the charity spends a lot of money employing the best person… than saves money and gets somebody who’s right. So that’s a very important message.” — John Spiers (08:16)
• How to Judge Impact:
  • Tough for donors—no simple balance sheets, outputs not always clear. John compares following expert investors (à la Warren Buffett) to piggybacking on top grantmakers' choices in philanthropy (08:51).
• Use ‘Signalling’ from Grantmakers:
  • If a small charity is backed by trusted organizations (Comic Relief, Esmée Fairbairn), that’s a strong indicator they’ve been properly vetted (09:02).
• Red Flags & Board Structure:
  • Chequered governance (e.g., same board for years, poor diversity, persistent late filings, deficits) should trigger deeper scrutiny (21:27–22:36).
  • “If you’re consistently running deficits or if your income’s declining…you need to do a little bit more digging.” — John Spiers (21:47)
• Data Limitations and Digital Transparency:
  • Charity sector data is poor; John advocates for better digital reporting, even proposing a small filing fee to fund improvements (23:09–23:31).

The Giving Is Great Platform (19:01–24:37)

• Designed to help sort through 200,000 UK charities by aggregating grant data, financials, and governance to visualize which ones are supported by major funders and spot governance/financial red flags quickly.
• “I went to the Charity Commission search engine… it wasn’t even as easy as getting a needle in a haystack.” — John Spiers (19:36)
• Giving Is Great also flags high reserves, persistent late filings, and provides insight into board composition.

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3. John’s Charitable Focus and ‘Impact Overhead’ (10:39–13:53, 35:21–37:19)

• Personal Focus Areas:
  • Early years (first 1,000 days of life) for brain development and breaking cycles of disadvantage.
  • Environmental causes, especially initiatives to extract CO₂ (“...it could be transformative. Worth a go.”) (12:22)
• On Overheads and Reserves:
  • Don’t obsess over admin costs; a well-paid capable CEO may deliver more impact than a frugal one.
  • Be wary of charities with excessively high reserves—though ‘excess’ is nuanced for fast-growing organizations (36:09–37:19).

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4. Barriers to Giving & Sector Challenges (23:43–34:57, 39:11–40:13)

• UK wealthy are surprisingly poor givers: Most give little because they don’t know how to judge charities or lack confidence; fundraising is often off-putting (“They don’t know how to give. They lack the confidence…”—24:38).
• Market Dysfunction:
  • Unlike businesses, weak charities can persist due to lack of “Darwinian” pressure; thus, the best need to be actively supported and signposted (28:17).
• Uneven Government Funding:
  • Tends to go to larger national charities, often bypassing the most dynamic local organizations.
  • John advocates for match funding (“I think the government funding should always be provided on a match basis.”—34:01).
• Data & Structural Reform:
  • Calls for modernizing Charity Commission data categories (e.g., distinguish ‘teenagers’ from ‘children’), and for consultative reform involving data users.

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5. Practical Tips for Smart Giving (37:19–53:33)

• For New Donors:
  • Clarify your preferred beneficiaries (e.g., teenagers, early years), then use Giving Is Great to find charities already backed by reputable funders.
  • Review impact reports—but beware: most are “output reports” describing activity, not actual life changes or outcomes (41:18–41:33).
  • “The better ones will [publish proper impact reports]. …You’re never going to find 100% perfect data that proves beyond all doubt this charity is achieving incredible results. Eventually you’ll have to make a subjective judgment.” — John Spiers (42:00)
• Leadership in Charities:
  • Assess for strong, ambitious, credible leadership, ideally with commercial experience (45:20).
  • Meet the CEO and test for ambition and proper governance (46:04–47:43).
• Culture, Volunteers, and Fundraising:
  • Managing volunteers requires subtlety; fundraising is a perpetual challenge and “always raising more funds … it never ends.” (50:02–50:20)

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6. Motivation, Reward, and the Joy of Giving (51:36–55:03)

• Giving Beyond Money:
  • Skilled volunteers—particularly from professional backgrounds—can add immense value to charities struggling with operational issues (53:19).
  • “The most important thing is… when you’re giving money, or it may not be money, it may be time or it might be skills, it’s incredibly rewarding when you can see how that it’s being effective…it’s probably the best feeling that life can give you.” — John Spiers (51:36)
• Personal Takeaway:
  • John’s motivation is not just altruistic, but personal satisfaction: “Overall, if I wasn’t getting something emotionally out of this, I wouldn’t be doing it.” (53:46)
  • On getting up in the morning: “I’ve always got a to-do list and I wish I didn’t, but I do. So that’s what gets me up.” (54:52)
  • Five-year hope: “Still above ground…still able to meet new people, learning new things, trying out new things myself.” (55:13)

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Memorable Quotes with Timestamps

• On focusing on impact over overhead:
  “What you definitely don’t want to ask is how much they’re spending on overheads, how much does CEO get paid. Evidence…shows that at best gives you no reliable answer and at worst gives you the wrong answer.” — John Spiers (08:16)
• On following the lead of expert grantmakers:
  “If I find [a charity] in my preferred sector and it’s already being backed by, say, Comic Relief and Esmée Fairbairn… that’s going to give me some encouragement.” — John Spiers (08:51)
• On struggles with charity data:
  “The charity sector is pretty broken… Most people don’t know how to give…they lack the confidence.” — John Spiers (23:55)
• On leadership:
  “For me, that’s the number one thing… We will not support in a significant way any charity that we don’t have high-level confidence in the senior leadership.” — John Spiers (45:20)
• On the reward of giving:
  “It’s probably the best feeling that life can give you.” — John Spiers (51:36)
• On data reform:
  “If you and I turned up there tomorrow, I think we’re getting this sorted pretty quickly. But then, you know, I don’t know. I know I’ve always been a bit over ambitious about my own view of my, my abilities, but, but I think Microsoft’s a better idea.” — John Spiers (43:21)
• On what gets him up in the morning:
  “I’m a lark, not an owl… I’ve always got a to-do list and I wish I didn’t, but I do.” — John Spiers (54:52)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00–03:51: Introduction & EQ Investors’ structure
• 04:50–09:30: The rationale and lived experience of running a ‘philanthropy company’
• 08:16–09:00: Why impact, not overheads, is the key measure for a charity
• 19:01–23:43: The origins and value of Giving Is Great
• 23:43–24:37: Why so few wealthy people give, and how to remedy it
• 36:09–37:19: How to read charity reserves and financial health
• 45:20–47:43: Assessing leadership in the charity sector
• 51:36–53:53: The personal joy and fulfillment gained from philanthropy
• 54:52–55:13: Quick-fire Q&A (motivation and future)

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Key Takeaways

• Smart Giving: Don’t fixate on admin costs; seek evidence of real impact and judge charities as you would any important investment—by leveraging expert research, grantmaker endorsements, and careful due diligence.
• Structural Innovation: Models where charities own equity in for-profit businesses can embed long-term purpose but are not a one-size-fits-all solution.
• Data & Transparency: Better digital information and sector transparency could massively improve donor confidence, but currently remains a bottleneck.
• Personal Motivation Matters: Philanthropy is emotionally rewarding—seek charities where your time or money has visible impact and consider offering your professional skills as a volunteer or advisor.

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For Further Learning

• Explore Giving is Great for data on UK charities.
• Consider B Corporation certification and philanthropy-linked structures for impact-driven businesses.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to All About Business with me, James Reed, the podcast that covers everything about business management and leadership. How do we know that charitable giving really makes a difference? And what does it take to build businesses that don't just generate profit for private shareholders, but also create measurable impact for people and communities? Joining me today on All About Business is John Spears, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and founder of EQ Investors, one of the UK's leading B corporations. John has built a career proving that profit and purpose really go hand in hand. And in this episode, he shares practical insights on what makes philanthropy effective, how entrepreneurs can spot opportunities in inefficient sectors, and why AI may transform the way we all work and give. Well, today on All About Business, I couldn't be more delighted than to welcome John Spears. John is an entrepreneur and philanthropist of note, and he originally set up a business called Best Invest back in the 1980s, which he sold very successfully to 3i. And he's currently the chair of EQ Investors. John has also established a charity platform called Giving Is Great, which is a fantastic resource for charities. He's a classic car enthusiast, he doesn't mind me telling you that. And a champion croquet player, which must mean he has a mean streak. So, John, thank you for coming in. And let's begin at the beginning. What is EQ Investors and why is it called that?

[B]

EQ's a wealth management business. I spent most of my adult life working in that sector. And after I'd sold Best Invest and was no longer involved at all with it, then I still had a hankering to be involved in that sector. And I think one of the few sectors that I feel that I've got some competence in. So I bought a fairly small business and I renamed it EQ because the emotional quotient, you know, being a measure of people's emotional intelligence, got to some of the heart of what I wanted to do, because I wanted to run the business in the way I'd originally run Best Invest and which private equity don't always, which was to be thinking of the client first and letting the bottom line look after itself if you'd done the proper things correctly. Whereas what I was seeing was people would start with a spreadsheet and then try to manipulate the business to achieve that result, and that that's not likely to be successful in the long run.

[A]

So eq, as an interesting structure, is what I call a philanthropy company. I know my first guest who's actually, you know, involved with chairing a philanthropy company, which is exciting. So will you Just tell us what that structure is so that our listeners know and we can explore what you like and maybe don't like about it.

[B]

Well, the EQ foundation is registered charity that we set up soon after we bought the business and I gifted some of my shares to it. So it now owns roughly a quarter of the company. And there are various reasons for doing that, but one was I felt that this would give. Give some comfort to our clients and to our staff that there would be some stability and that the culture of the way we should run the business would be that we are trying to do the right thing.

[A]

So. So the other shareholders. Now your foundation owns a quarter yourself and people who work in the business, is that right? Yeah. So that you. And they have three quarters and. And has that turned out to be the case? Has it given it some stability? Has it been. Have you. How long ago did you do this? Now?

[B]

Just over 10 years.

[A]

So you've got 10 years running? Yeah, in this way, I think it.

[B]

Has, I think it has, but I do, you know, I think, I think there are disadvantages to it too. I think the trouble with having a charity as a major shareholder is, first of all that that charity is unlikely to have any expertise or anything, anything else that it can bring to the party to, you know, to make the business more successful. It's likely to be a passive shareholder. Secondly, its predominant interest will be in receiving an income, so it will be keen to see a regular and consistent stream of dividends. And finally, it's unlikely to have the capacity to support a capital injection if the business is in a high growth phase and needs to raise money. So I think in some businesses it can work extremely well. I don't think it would be a, you know, an appropriate structure for an early stage business that was going to be capital intensive.

[A]

So you've been doing it for 10 years though. Has it been a good message to customers? Do your clients like it? I mean, you're called eq, you have a charity foundation owning a quarter of the business. That's a definite distinct position in the market in wealth management, I imagine.

[B]

I think so. I think, you know, wealth management is a business where it's absolutely essential that your clients have complete confidence and trust in you. And it takes a long time to build up trust and you can lose it very quickly, but it takes a long time to gain it. So anything you can do to help to boost the chances of people reaching a level of confidence that they're prepared to transact with you is, is good for business.

[A]

And you feel the foundation is part of that, that helps with that. They trust you more because of it. Do you think, or.

[B]

I think it's part of it, but I do know. I think not all of it. You know, it's. It's one piece of the jigsaw.

[A]

Yeah. But you. You were very deliberate in making that decision to set it up like that.

[B]

I was. When I was contemplating the structure, I originally had the idea that we would, rather than being shareholder, that we would gift a certain proportion of profits to charities each year. And. And there was some test marketing of that, and actually they got some kind of surprisingly bad responses from it.

[A]

People who are you testing that with? Customers.

[B]

Potential customers. Yeah. Right.

[A]

Why? What was the response?

[B]

When something's new and people don't understand it, we're in a world where people often tend to think, well, there's something, you know, this sounds a bit weird. It's probably not good. And they thought, well, you must be making too much money if you can do that.

[A]

You must give it away.

[B]

You must be. You must be charging me too much and this kind of thing. So we sort of played it down a lot after that, and then, you know, it took a year or two before we made this big share transfer and. And that's been fine.

[A]

But that was your generosity. I mean, that was me.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So you decided you wanted to give it away.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

No one's going to say, well, why should you do that? Yeah, that's your business, isn't it?

[B]

It was my money, so.

[A]

So you should be applauded for doing that as an entrepreneur. And no customer complained?

[B]

Not as far as I know.

[A]

They should know. Why would they? Because a company has shareholding.

[B]

And I think, you know, because we, you know, and then with the EQ foundation, we have some knowledge and expertise in trying, you know, trying to find good charities ourselves to support with our money that is of interest to some of our clients, that we can, you know, we can try and help them as well. And there's a big move going on within the financial services sector that some people believe it should be a compulsory activity for financial advisors to be able to give advice on philanthropy as well. I don't personally think that would be appropriate, but I do think, first of all, I think anybody who's thinking of making philanthropic donations is likely to be in a similar situation to I was when I first realized I had more than enough money for myself, which is. I didn't know what to do. I just didn't know how to find the right Charities, it's not like finding good businesses. There isn't a bottom line that you can look at and give you an indication this, this charity is doing really good work. So it's, it's one of the most difficult things that I've come across in my life is how to find really effective charities from the 200,000 that are registered in the UK.

[A]

Yeah, I'm just thinking that that must be the case. I mean, how, how do you, what are your sort of top learnings? I suppose if you want to look for a really great charity, what should you be looking for?

[B]

Well, the fundamental thing you're trying to look for is what, what's their real impact? What are they achieving? You know, what you definitely don't want to ask is how much they're spending on overheads, how much does CEO get paid? Evidence to show that that at best gives you no reliable answer and at worst gives you the wrong answer. You, you know, far better the charity spends a lot of money employing the best person available in the sector than saves money and gets somebody who's right. So that's a very important message. So looking for impact is critical, but of course it's very hard to measure, very hard to judge it. What I started doing a while back as a sort of shortcut, if you like, to sort of get my short list down to something manageable. I thought, well, my background, as you know, is in the investment world. And I thinking one night, if I didn't have the expertise or the time to find investments myself, then the shortcut is I can look and see, well, what are the top guys out there doing? What's Terry Smith buying? What, a few more people like that, and if I see, oh, they're all buying the same stock there, I might think, well, there's something interesting happening here and I realize that we could begin to do that in the charitable sector. So if I can find a small charity in the cause area that might interest me, and we're all got our own very personal beliefs about that which can't be interfered with. But if I find one in my preferred sector and it's already being backed by say, Comic Relief and Esme Feb and a few other top grant making charities, well, that's going to give me some encouragement. I know that they will have done a lot of research before they did that, so it means that I probably should take a look at that, that one. What if hiring could be completely free? Well, now it is. Whether you're filling dozens of roles over the next few months, or looking for your next team member right now, reed.co.uk can find them for free. Between now and the end of the year, reed.co.uk is giving away 1 million free job listings to employers across the UK. No catch, no long term commitments, just more businesses being able to find their perfect hire. But don't wait. These listings aren't free forever. Visit read.co.ukmillionjobgiveaway today and be part of 1,000,000 opportunities to love Mondays.

[A]

So what are your areas of particular focus? Charitably, it sounded like you've got some specific ones that you like to.

[B]

Areas that really interest me are early years. So the first thousand days after you're conceived, if you're, if you're conceived, that's interesting. If you're. Because, you know, while you're in the womb, if you're unfortunate enough to be in a hostile environment, there might be domestic violence going on, there might be abuse, might be drugs, all sorts of things, then that's likely to have a very severe impact on the development of your brain. And if you experience what are called adverse childhood experiences, aces, these do have a lasting impact.

[A]

And so you're sort of talking up to the age of three, my arithmetic.

[B]

At the age of three, you know, there's a potential rewiring opportunity maybe during puberty. But, you know, if you've been in the wrong place at three, chances are, you know, you're going to struggle to settle in school, settle into family or whatever. No matter what this, you know, what is provided for you. So, so getting involved at that point, anticipating where there may be problems, is likely to pay huge dividends.

[A]

And you said that there's some rewiring potentially possible at puberty. Do you get involved in that stage as well?

[B]

Yeah, no, absolutely.

[A]

You support charities of that space. Yes.

[B]

Because, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna miss people.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Early on. So, you know, let's have a second chance.

[A]

I know you've been a very supportive champion of the Big Give. That's the charity I share over many years now and thank you for that. But I think you also, you've also shown interest in green and environmental causes as well.

[B]

Yes, that's right. I mean, I think, you know, that is the biggest challenge probably facing humanity.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So, you know, to, to ignore it, I think feels wrong to me. I think, I mean, the challenges are so great that it can be a little overwhelming. But more recently we've been backing some very early stage science in conjunction with Cambridge University to try and improve the process for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It's very high risk. It might come to nothing, but it's worth a go. It could be transformative.

[A]

Yeah, it's worth a go. Well, that sounds exciting. So we're with, with Big Give, we're creating earth rays, which is going to be an even bigger appeal for environmental charities next year. And I'm hoping we'll find a media partner and a sponsor for that. So anyone listening wants to get involved. I mean, if you're from Netflix, we'd love to hear from you, but yeah, I completely concur with what you say, John. It's the biggest challenge facing us all and we should seek to do something about it. So I want to go back to this Philco quarter of the business owned by charity. You said that you didn't think that charity could be a very engaged, I suppose, shareholder, but is it, is it possible that the, the way a charity supports a business is somewhat different through being a charity and it brings a different ethos to the, to the company, to what might be a purely capitalist type run business? And maybe that's more supportive than we first realize it could be.

[B]

I mean, and I think it's going to depend a lot on what is the structure of that charity. I mean, the EQ foundation is, is a foundation that I created and, and I run. And therefore in some ways it's a sort of extension of me. And so, yeah, it probably doesn't add, you know, as much as, you know, if, whereas if you had, say, Esme Fairburn or something, let's say, as a shareholder and with access to all of the resources that they would have.

[A]

So there are other ways of doing it.

[B]

There are other ways of doing it. Yeah. You know, I suppose the, you know, one of the great examples was the Wellcome foundation. And, you know, that worked out very well indeed. But equally they, they realized the time had come when they needed to divest.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And so this capital raising point, how big a constraint is that on the sort of.

[B]

It hasn't been for us because we're not a capital intensive business. And you know, unfortunately we haven't been growing all that fast. But, but even if we had been, I think that would have been manageable. But, but I think, you know, clearly there are some businesses that are very capital intensive and then it would be difficult.

[A]

So those, those reservations you express, then they haven't been like experiences that you have felt directly, but they're, they're sort of reflections that you have sort of Come to looking around the business world thinking that this. Do you think more companies should be philanthropy companies?

[B]

I think, I think more companies should be aware of the opportunity. I think each business should make its own mind up in the light of its own circumstances.

[A]

Yeah, definitely. I think there's a, it's a, well, as it was in your case, a personal decision and very personal decision whether you want to give that away or not. Yeah.

[B]

And usually it does come out of some, you know, it's some, something to do with the founder. You know, charities aren't generally in the business of putting, you know, putting money into companies as venture capital and then seeing how well it does. A few, a few are, but by and large they're not in that space.

[A]

Well, we had a very interesting conversation with Phil Collingham from Raspberry PI. Obviously done really well and that started out as a charity, so sort of the other way around. So then it's still a substantial shareholder and, but have built a very valuable business which has been good for the business and the charity. Yeah, so, so I, I think that, well, I suppose I should declare my hand here. I've written a book called Karma Capitalism supporting the idea of philanthropy companies and trying to encourage other people to think about it. But as you said, it's a business by business decision. But part of our research shows that these companies last longer, they're more successful and, and people like working in them. And so for those reasons I think that's good for business as well as from the philanthropic side of things.

[B]

Yeah, I think it's likely, isn't it, if, if, if a charity is at or close to the heart of a business that there's a strong culture throughout of, of not being me, me, me type environment and, and, and that's likely more conducive to pleasurable working and long term success.

[A]

Yeah. And I think, and, and these days especially, I think people buy into, they want to work for an organization that has a purpose and I think so.

[B]

I mean we certainly, you know, we, we glad that we have a very strong connection and staff feel, you know, pleased to be part of the business. Low staff turnover as a result and you know, it's increasingly hard to find I think these days.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Despite that, you know, we, we were one of the first B corporations in the UK and you know, and I think that's a, that's a great movement but you know, sadly, you know, it just takes time. It's still relatively small number of companies that are, that are in that group.

[A]

But you've you've found that to be a positive thing from your point of view to do that as well?

[B]

Yeah, very much. I mean, their, their certification process has certainly become considerably more taxing. But then that kind of pushes you, you know, that, that was actually, that's what led us to me to transfer part of my shareholding to the foundation. Was it because we could see our score would be improved.

[A]

Oh, I see. So any B core companies listening who want to improve your score, become a philanthropy company.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

That's a good message. So, yeah, you know, we're climbed on that.

[B]

Yeah, I think we're the highest scoring B corp in the UK at the moment. And one of the reasons.

[A]

Fantastic. Well, that's good to know that you get a higher mark if you're a B core because I've heard it's become a more testing assessment.

[B]

Well, I guess it's interesting too, the B Lab, which is the organization that monitors B corporations, they do see it as a positive indicator and that's why they give the, the additional score.

[A]

Interesting. My wife Nicola's company, which is called Beeble, is appropriate enough for B core, so I'll let her know she should also become a Phil Co. So you've obviously been very generous philanthropically and you've got your own foundation. Tell me about Giving Is Great because this is a great creation of yours that has all sorts of potential benefits for people interested in this space.

[B]

Well, Giving Is Great came out of that. That same revelation I, I mentioned a few minutes ago where I thought that if, if a charity had attracted support from a good grant maker, that that would make it more likely that it was going to be of interest because I was trying to find charities myself to support. And I would go to the charity Commission search engine and for example, say I'm looking for homeless charities. And I would just get a list of names, most of which I'd never heard of before, nothing else about them. And it wasn't even as easy as getting a needle in a haystack.

[A]

So you said there are 200,000 charities.

[B]

200,000 to choose from. So I had this idea and had a really smart guy as my, my chief technical officer at the time. And, and on Monday I said, I've had this idea, you know, get this database of all the charities and I get this database with all the grants, both of which are available for anybody to download. This might work. And he was the kind of guy that two days later he said, have a look at this. And he'd gone and built it. For me. And so we started using it.

[A]

And so what did it tell you at the beginning? What could you see?

[B]

Well, we immediately started putting, saying, well, you know, show us, you know, in some sector, show us some charities that come out of this. And once again there'd be a list of names that we'd never heard of. But once we then looked at them, we thought, yeah, this is interesting, this is a. And the, the first one I think that we actually supported was City Harvest, which, which I still rate very highly. They, they, they're one of the leaders of collecting surplus food from supermarkets, manufacturers, distributing it to other charities, primarily fresh food, but not exclusively. And then those other charities turn it into a hot meal that can be given for people in, in, in. In need. You know, we never would have found them before. So that was just a start. And then we started to think, well, what else can we, what else can we do with this digital information that is freely available to us that might give us an indication that this charity is, is interesting? Well, one, you know, there's obvious things like do they have a. Have they consistently been filing their accounts late? I'm embarrassed enough to say my own charity fell into that trap and, you.

[A]

Know, that's a warning flag.

[B]

Well, to me, yeah, I was being sloppy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, it's quite right that I got my wrist slap from giving us great for it because I needed to tighten up and I did.

[A]

So giving is great. Told you.

[B]

Giving is great. I'm not running my own charity very well. That's good.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

So, you know, if you're consistently running deficits or if your income's declining, you know, these, I mean, these aren't necessarily things that mean you'd never support a charity, but, I mean, you need to do a little bit more digging. What's the shape of the board? You know, is it the same three people who've been on it for 10 years and they look a bit like me? Well, you know, that, that would not be a good indicator for me. I want to see, ideally a broad age range, good gender mix and fairly frequent recycling of people so there's new ideas coming in. Doesn't mean to say I'd never back a charity that had three people like me as the trustees. It just means it's another. It's a line of inquiry that I want to satisfy myself. Is there a really good reason for that?

[A]

And Giving is Great will tell you.

[B]

That Giving is Great does, you know, so we know we're only as good as the digital information available sadly, that is nothing like as good as it could be. I really wish the Charity Commission would put the resources in to make the digital data far, far better. The reason most commonly given is we can't afford it. There's a simple solution to that. If you run a company, every time you fill in your annual return, you have to pay a modest fee to Companies House. I think it's about £20. If every charity had to do the same thing, it raised over 3 million pounds for the charity Commission. And why would you object to that? I mean, you're getting the benefit of.

[A]

Yeah, well regulated.

[B]

Of being regulated. You should pay for it.

[A]

So have you suggested this? Well, that sounds like a good idea.

[B]

Probably to the wrong person.

[A]

Well, if anyone's listening, that sounds like a good idea because I think it would be really helpful if it was. Are probably digital because, you know, we're.

[B]

In a digital age, of course, and if we just got far better information, you know, because the charity sector is pretty broken. I'm sure you find this too.

[A]

Why do you feel that most people.

[B]

Don'T know how to give? They don't. They. They lack the confidence. You know, they've heard, they've read about a few scandals and a very small number of charities. They don't know what to look for. And that holds them back. You know, we know that particularly amongst wealthy people in the uk, the vast majority of them give no significant amount of money to charity. I mean, I just feel terribly upset about that. It's a massively lost opportunity for the charities, even more for those people, because I know the joy that I've had when you've supported a very successful charity and you've seen what they've achieved and it's the best feeling you can get.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I would agree with you running big give.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So most wealthy people don't give money to charity.

[B]

They. They don't give.

[A]

And your sort of assessment of that is they don't know how to, or they don't think of it, or it's not sold to them properly. What's. What's your view, John?

[B]

It's going to be a whole collection of things, but for the vast majority, it's too difficult. You know, it's not, you know, investing is. Has been made pretty simple and there have always been plenty of people out there trying to sell you investments.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

The only person trying to sell you philanthropy is a charity that's trying to raise money. And because we get a lot of that if we're walking down the streets or in our email boxes or whatever of people asking for money. We've got our defenses up and we feel embarrassed if a friend comes and asks you for a bit of money. I don't know about you, no one.

[A]

Really likes being asked.

[B]

I'm sort of thinking, well, okay, but you know, is this charity any good? What work have you done on it? And this is what again I say with Giving is Great. If someone's asking you to support their favorite charity, just check it out on Giving is great. Doesn't mean to say if it's got some negative comments on it that you wouldn't support it. But it'll give you a few questions, maybe you can then put to them and you can say, well, why have you been filing your accounts lately? So that's a very good advice. Give me a bit of basis. But the most important thing is if you can get some evidence of the good they're doing. You know, if you can see, wow, those are those people. You've taken them off the scrap heap of life and given them the kind of opportunities. Because the thing that drove me was, I mean, I've been astonishingly lucky in my life. You know, I, I was not subject to any adverse childhood experiences as far as I'm aware. You know, I was in a stable home environment. I went to a good school, I went to a great university. I've enjoyed employment through my life when, whenever I've needed it or wanted it. And I've been moderately healthy, so I've been lucky. But a lot of people aren't. And if you were in the wrong place in those first thousand days that we talked about, it's not your fault that you've ended up on the street. You don't have the capacity. And it took me a long time to realize this. You know, I thought, why don't they just go and get a job? They can't. You know, there are, there are serious issues deep inside them that may not, it may not be possible to address them at all now. But, but even if it is, it's going to take time and it takes a dedicated intervention. You're not going to get that from the state. The charitable sector is your own, the only hope for doing something about this.

[A]

So, so that's a real call for action from the wealthier amongst the population to step forward, really, because as you say, the state can't do it. And these charities, there are lots of them, many of which are really great, which you can help people surface now on Giving is great.

[B]

They are. But as in most walks of life, there's a massive difference between the really good ones and the okay ones. You know, the best charities are achieving more than 100 times the impact.

[A]

So 100 times what other charities are.

[B]

You know, you know, than an average charity.

[A]

So that's huge, that difference.

[B]

It really makes sense to spend a bit of time to try to, you know, because the, the need is unlimited.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So every penny that goes into charitable, charitable sector needs to work as hard as possible. And because the normal laws, the Darwinian laws of commerce don't apply. You know, in, in, in the commercial world. Commercial world, you go bust or you get taken over if you're not very good. The charitable world, if you've got fundraiser, even if you're rubbish at what you're.

[A]

Doing, your customers aren't going to be, nobody knows.

[B]

So rewarding those, those charities that are really good is a very important part of my mission and that's what I'm trying to do with giving is great. I'm trying to make it easier for the cream to come to the top of the pile. And what we're seeing now is that more and more charities are looking at their score on giving as great. So just like I did, how can we get my, how can we get our score up?

[A]

Right.

[B]

And that's good. You know, in a small way, I think we're starting to drive a little bit of change, but my, we've got a long way to go still.

[A]

Well, you said it's very hard to find, find out or assess what their real impact is. I mean, given the range of things that charities do, that must be incredibly difficult.

[B]

It is incredibly difficult. And I think unless you've got a lot of time and a lot of experience, you need to rely on somebody else. And that's where to say it is. It's useful that we have a lot of very good grant making organizations in this country and they are doing this full time.

[A]

They're doing a lot of the due diligence.

[B]

They're doing the due diligence and checking it out and they also want to find the best. So that's, that's a good proxy with.

[A]

Big give, which obviously you, you have been engaged with for a number of years. I find that it seems to favor the more dynamic charities because they have to go out and raise funds themselves and get their appeals, get their supporters activated to support the appeal. And, and we obviously do due diligence on the charities as well. But I found that match funding is a very important way of making Those pounds go further. Would you agree with that?

[B]

I do agree. I mean, as you, as you know, I've, I've been supporting the Big Give ever since I set up the EQ Foundation. I think, I think it's a, it's a very simple way of just trying to stimulate something in people. Of, oh, I'm, I'm kind of getting something for nothing here. I'm more, you know, and I need, and I need to do it now because this opportunity won't be here maybe next week. Yeah, so. And what we all know is that the charities have managed to attract a lot of brand new donors by using this technique and hopefully they can then engage with them and keep them supporting them in future years. So I think matching is a great idea. You know, there are some weaknesses to it, but overall I think it's great. And I, often when we're supporting charities, we will, we will do it on a match basis and we'll say, well, you need this. We'll give you, say, half of it, but you need to get the other half and you can use us as the lever to get that.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. It makes all the money go further if, if we can, if we can achieve that. I think also the, you know, colleague of mine coined the phrase, he said, you know, generosity is contagious, you know, when you can see other people giving, other people come behind it and support it.

[B]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[A]

Well.

[B]

And I think there's, it's also the, it's the sort of, there's the comfort and the strength of numbers. You know, if other people are doing this, then, you know, they can't all be wrong.

[A]

You'd hope not. You'd hope not. But we find that people give more and they give more often when there's a match. And as you, and as you said rightly, the charities find a lot of new donors as well, which is, which is, it is good for them. Where do you see this headed? I mean, because a lot of things government cannot do, but people are asking more and more of government, you know, and taxation is, looks likely to rise and the sort of pressure on government is huge, but there are more and more social demands. How is there some sort of new settlement you can envisage or how's this going to evolve? Because it looks like it might break?

[B]

Well, of course, you know, the government allocates a large amount of money to the charitable sector, but unfortunately it does it in a pretty bad way a lot of the time.

[A]

Explain how's it allocated.

[B]

Well, for sort of fairly understandable reasons. They tend to prefer to deal with national organizations because then they can enter in a single contract and whatever, the services can be delivered across the country. You understand that. But, but as you know, the real dynamism is not in these big national organizations. It's in the smaller ones, the local ones that know their communities really well. Or it could be the smaller ones that want to become national and they've spent some time developing a program that's highly effective, but they don't have that national scale. And we see that all the time that these guys are being starved of those government funds and they're going to some other organization that, you know, it's very clearly less good at doing it. I would like to see. First of all, I think the government funding should always be provided on a match basis.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because government's never going to be very good at spotting the best charities either. At least you'll have the wool pulled over their eyes. So simple way of diffusing your risk. There is say, well, we'll give you million pounds or whatever it is, but you've got to raise a million or maybe 2 million or 3 million yourself. And if you can't do that, well, you don't get anything. And that, you know, that would be an indication that they're, they're not, I support that. Yeah, they're not so far so, so effective. So, so I think a, a combination of, of using matching and providing a way for smaller charities to get a decent share of the pie would have a massive impact. And it's the only solution really because neither central government nor local government can deliver anything more than the, you know, the emergency type services.

[A]

We ran a small charity appeal through Big Give earlier in the year and it was successful, but it would need to scale up considerably to meet that. But I would agree because in those smaller charities you have the local, they're like social entrepreneurs that sort of dynamic people who know their community team want to get things done. There's a local heroes, these people, it'd be good to back them and they.

[B]

Know the local circumstances and, and if they're founders, you know, they're passionate, you know, I mean, there's no such thing. You know, they're not working a 35 hour week. No, they're probably working far too hard and they're probably inspiring the other people who work with them to do something similar because, you know, they, they're on a mission, you know, I'm not saying that, you know, I mean they're definitely. There's a Whole lot of areas where you have to have big infrastructure. If you're providing emergency aid internationally and so on, then it's hard to do that without, without that.

[A]

So you, you, you said earlier that you shouldn't be looking at the sort of admin costs of the charity or. Well, I mean, if a charity's got a lot of cash in its accounts, they don't need any more usually, do they? I mean, isn't it, isn't that sort of reading of the accounts part of the.

[B]

Oh, if, if they, if, if they've got excess reserve.

[A]

I mean, some charities have huge reserves, don't they?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Then, then.

[A]

So you would say they wouldn't be priorities for mean giving is great.

[B]

We'll flag that up.

[A]

It will flag that.

[B]

If, you know, if their reserves are above. The charity commission, I think recommends a maximum about nine months. You know, actually, I think that's a, I think it, there's nothing wrong with being a bit more, especially if you're a fast growing charity.

[A]

You know, if you're a business, that would feel a bit tight, wouldn't it?

[B]

Well, it would be.

[A]

I wouldn't like that. Yeah. Nine months.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. But there's a lot of. Donors will not support you if you've got more than one year's overhead in cash, given, you know, the volatility of something and the lack of visibility on future donations. I'm with you. I think, I think this is too high, but that's where the guidance is. We'll flag it up, I think if it's over a year. And again, it's not saying don't support it, especially if it's fast growing. Because if fast growing, the measurements being done on, you know, the average of last year's income and you're already way above that. So, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a measure that needs to be looked at with some care.

[A]

So, so I'm a sort of imagine I'm a wealthy person who's come into a bit of money. I don't really. I know I want to do something philanthropic. I want to support charity, but I don't know where to go. I don't know how to start. So someone's told me, giving is great, go and check it out. It's worth checking out. John Spears. Great. And it knows what he's doing. It's worth it. So, so I go there. I've decided I want to give away on a 50 grand. What should I do when I get there when, when I go to giving is great. When. What should I be asking it? What should I be looking for? Well, yeah, to help make a good decision.

[B]

Well, I think the first thing we. We've all got highly personalized.

[A]

Teenagers preferences.

[B]

Yeah. So, you know, young people, it's working out.

[A]

So I know that. But beyond that, no idea which charities. Okay.

[B]

Okay. And if you want to support teenagers, maybe not particularly bothered whether, you know, you're probably keen on getting them into work, you're probably keen on helping them with any addiction issues, helping them launch into life. You know, you know, you know, it could be. So the actual, the type of intervention, probably not so important to you. It's the actual beneficiary. Now, this is where it gets difficult because, you see, this is where it comes back to this poor quality data that we're getting. Yeah. When you set a charity up, the Charity Commission requires you to stipulate who you're going to help and what you're going to do. And, and there's a small number of preset categories. Children would be one of them. Teenagers is not. Elderly people would be one. And a lot of charities, when they, you know, they would think, well, let's just tick all of them because we don't know exactly where we're going to end up. And then, then we're covered.

[A]

That's not that helpful, if you want.

[B]

So. So then of course, it becomes completely useless. You're then trying to find, you know, you want to help elderly people and you find that. Tick that box 20 years ago, but they don't do anything.

[A]

So children would cover the teenager category. Well, would it?

[B]

Well, would it? You know, I mean, this is it, this is it. There isn't a category for teenagers.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So what would you. And I agree with you, I think that's a very important category. So that whole context needs it, you know, that needs to be revisited by the Charity Commission. There need to be more choices. And every time that you fill your annual return, and you should be obliged to update it because at the moment you're not. You fill in your financial information, you don't even look at it. We've, we get people coming under giving as great charities and they say, information, your site's all wrong. Oh, could you show us what it is? Yeah. You say that we, we help elderly people. We don't, we don't, we don't do that at all. And we said, well, if you go on your page on the Charity Commission, you'll see that that's what it says.

[A]

There, that's why it's there.

[B]

And, you know, if that's not true, you can go online and you can edit it directly to Charity Commission and that will update our site very quickly afterwards and they'll say, thank you very much. But, you know, they've not been prompted for this ever since they set the charity up. They're not. Not probably even aware of it. And this is where, you know, it. It's not rocket science to get this right and it make it so much better. Now we are giving us great. Have tried to make much more granular analysis of the beneficiaries, using a bit of AI and stuff, but I think it's better than just relying on the Charity Commission. But it's nothing like as good as I want it to be. So you can put on there who you want the beneficiary to be and that will narrow it down. Will you get every charity that's in that sector? No.

[A]

All right, so I might get some charities coming up and then I want to know how good they are, impact wise. What. What questions should I ask about that?

[B]

First thing is, you know, just have. Have a look at what they're publishing themselves on. On. On their impact reports.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Most charities these days publish something called an impact report. Most of them, unfortunately, are not impact reports.

[A]

What are they?

[B]

They're output reports.

[A]

Output reports.

[B]

They'll tell you what the charity has done.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But they, you know, they'll say, we have provided services to 1, 200 children this year.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But they won't say what's been it.

[A]

How those children have been affected.

[B]

What's the effect of that? So it doesn't take you very far forward. The better ones will, though.

[A]

Right.

[B]

It will start to give you something.

[A]

Sometimes hard to know, isn't it? I mean, you take some children to Jamie's Farm, which I think is a great charity.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How's their mental health improved by that? I don't know, probably, but.

[B]

Well, often, often they'll do a survey. Is. Is that. How reliable is that? You know, it's. It's that you're never going to find 100 perfect data that proves beyond all doubt this charity is achieving incredible results. You know, eventually you'll have to make a subjective judgment and philanthropy is all about. For most people, it's just about activating the heart. That's the first driver of this. What do I really feel like doing? What I'm trying to do is to give people the opportunity to access their brain as well, so that I really want to give to this one, but just before I do, let's do a bit of a sense check. Could we do better?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we won't get 100 perfect answers, but I think it's better than doing nothing.

[A]

No, I think it's really helpful. And the more information this, this conundrum around the charity question, I was just thinking, listening to, you know, a really good management consultancy or someone like Microsoft could do a bit of pro bono work and really help the whole sector in a huge way if they did what you were suggesting. If they just charge 20 quid or whatever. I mean. So if anyone's listening who might be able to help with this, please, please get in touch because I think that's something that makes you helpful to me.

[B]

You know, if, if you and I turned up there tomorrow, I think we're getting this sorted pretty quickly. But then, you know, I don't know. I know I've always been a bit over ambitious about my own view of my, my abilities, but, but I think Microsoft's a better idea.

[A]

Oh, someone. I mean, it sounds like. It sounds, it's very doable, though, that this data could be better packaged up.

[B]

It's totally doable, better published and, you know, but, but they did change the whole annual return methodology a couple of years ago and what a mess that was. You know, a lot of charities could not file at all online for months and as a result they now permanently look as if they filed late and then we now have to fill a whole lot of extra questions in, none of which address these issues, you know, which were, some of which were sort of hot topics at the time and a lot of which don't look very relevant. And what was the process for going through to, to create that? You know, it, it didn't feel like it was in any kind of inclusive process that got the, you know, the people who are active in the sector together. I certainly had never had an opportunity.

[A]

They didn't come and talk to you?

[B]

No.

[A]

That might have been a good idea.

[B]

I'm one of the biggest users of their, of their data.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

No one's ever contacted me. And I tick the box that says, would you like to be contacted about this? I say, yes. You know, many times no one has ever been in touch with me to say, can we have a, with you and see you, you know, what's good and what's bad about this data?

[A]

Well, given what I'm learning, I think that would be an hour very well spent for the Charity Commission. Please, please pick up the phone to John.

[B]

I don't think I'm going to be getting a Christmas card from. But, but don't worry about that.

[A]

I, I do think it would really help shine a light on what's possible. But. Yeah, I mean, sometimes you have to pay for things. I suppose that's if they change that 20 quid for filing your accounts point you made earlier could unlock a lot.

[B]

Of upsides that, that's enough money to deliver a lot of change.

[A]

Yeah. What about leadership in the charity sector?

[B]

Absolutely. Well, I mean, for me that's the number one thing, you know, I mean just, just as it is with a business.

[A]

Yeah. You know, are they the same?

[B]

I'd rather have a top CEO running a, a bad business than the other way around because he'll work out it's about business and change it. So leadership, leadership. I mean, we will not support in a significant way any charity that we don't have high level confidence in the, in the, in the senior leadership.

[A]

Does that mean you meet them? Yeah, so, so how would that, what would you go? How do you progress that? You can sit down with them or do I invite them for an interview or what do you do? How do you, how do you assess their leadership qualities?

[B]

Yeah, we, before we get to that, we will have accumulated as much information as we can.

[A]

This is like evaluating a business.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, you do paper. We have a structured process so, you know, we know which bits of information we need to get.

[A]

What are you looking for in terms of the bits of information you need to get? Just to help people think about this.

[B]

We're looking for things like, you know, how, how, how secure is the income, you know, if you're 100% reliable on Reliant on donations and a significant chunk of that is from one or two sources, you know, who may not want to continue. That would be a worry. Wouldn't mean to say I wouldn't support them, but it would be something I'd want to talk about. I would want to look at how they're evaluating impact and what their plans are for improving whatever information they've got there. And I'm interested in ambition because I'm not personally so interested in supporting really good local organizations that are happy just carrying on doing the great work they are already doing locally. I want the ones who are able to say we're going to take this and either ourselves or in conjunction with other organizations help to roll this out. But that's my personal.

[A]

To make the work go further.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That makes the Money go further means.

[B]

We can have a bigger impact.

[A]

Yeah. So those are the top three things you look at. And in terms of the, the CV of the CEO, is there anything you look at on there, you think?

[B]

I like to see some commercial experience.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, I think someone has been the other side of the fence and can demonstrate some success. There's is, it's a big plus for me.

[A]

And why, why is that?

[B]

Well, because, you know, that in the, you know, in the harsh commercial environment, they've been successful and we know commerce is very, very competitive these days. So if you've done well there, you know, you must have some skills.

[A]

So, and, and do you think those skills are transferable? I mean, not always, no.

[B]

No.

[A]

So it's a different type of skill set, perhaps?

[B]

Yeah, no, I've seen, seen examples of where someone's come in and where it's, it's not worked, I think. Where, where.

[A]

What happened there. Without naming names, obviously, but what was the sort of problem?

[B]

Often you've got to handle people a little differently. If you've got a big reliance on volunteers, you need to be polite. I mean, personally, I think having a lot of volunteers is another example of a vote of confidence in an organization. If people prepared to give up their time for what you're doing, that's. That, that, that, that looks good, but it can also be dangerous because it's really hard to manage volunteers and especially if you start to try to manage them the same way as you would manage your, your salaried staff.

[A]

What? Go on, what, why, what do you.

[B]

Need to get, you know, why didn't, you know, look, why are you turning up 10 minutes later.

[A]

Come really. Well, I'm a volunteer.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So things as simple as that, it's time keeping.

[B]

Yeah. Or, you know, you know, you don't seem to have done much today. Well, you know, what do you want to do about it? It's hard, you know, I mean, it might be you actually really want to get rid of that volunteer. You know, how do you do that? There's someone who just comes in and chats the other volunteer. Volunteers all days and no, you know, it's, it's a bit hard to, to say. Would you mind doing that somewhere else?

[A]

So a charity leader needs to be good at dealing with volunteers in a way that a business leader might not have to think about.

[B]

That's one example. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Have you got any others? That's an interesting one.

[B]

Charity leadership is always going to involve fundraising.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So if you've been running A business and it's been a, you know, business with positive cash flow, you might not have needed to go raising more capital. So that's, that's the business is always.

[A]

Involving sales, isn't it? I suppose.

[B]

But yeah, yeah.

[A]

They're not the same thing though, you're saying. So, so fundraising is more like raising.

[B]

Capital and sales, except that, you know, it, it never ends. You're always, always raising more funds because of this whole structure that. Yeah, there's very little long term visibility.

[A]

On funding and people, as they say, have their guards up because they don't like being asked for money. Well, that's quite challenging.

[B]

You know, there's. The grant makers are overwhelmed with demand, especially right now. You know, I mean, what I'm hearing is the climate's the toughest it's been and all the time that I've been involved in this sector, so corporates are cutting back as well. So it's a really hard environment now in some ways, you know, in the long run that might be quite good news because if, if, if, if the Darwinian principles do apply and then the less good charities drop out, in the long run that could be good news. But, but we can't be sure that that's going to happen.

[A]

No, it is a tough environment for fundraising and, and there's a growing demand for the services at the same time, so.

[B]

Exactly. That's exactly the challenge and that's, and that's not going to stop.

[A]

Do you have any, any message that you want to transmit more widely to, for people to get behind charities at this point, as we sort of wrap up our conversation, given what you just.

[B]

Said, John, I think, I think the, the, maybe the most important thing is that when you, when you're giving money, or it may not be money, it may be time or it might be skills, it's incredibly rewarding when you can see how that it's being effective. And I said earlier, it's probably the best feeling that life can give you. So I encourage anyone who's got the capacity to try to get exposure to that and, you know, not just to limit their giving to helping people who are collecting money on the streets or all through mail shots and things, but to get some, get some human experience out of them.

[A]

So you can give money, you can give time, you can share your skills, you can go and look on. Giving is great.

[B]

All these things, all these things are vital. You know, most charities if you, you know, if you're recently retired, particularly from one of the professional service firms, you will have A bundle of skills and a contact book that could be so useful. You know, so many charities are struggling, often with really basic things, you know, just can't get their IT to work properly. Struggling to hire the right kind of people or decide, you know, offices, should we be, should we have a physical office or not? What are the options? So someone who, you know, can be, someone who can give that extra level of knowledge can be so useful and particularly make introductions to people who then might be able to deliver some of those specialist services.

[A]

And the key, as well as doing some good, is that it's enjoyable, rewarding and has given you personally great satisfaction for what you just said.

[B]

Most of the time.

[A]

Most of the time. Most of the time, when I'm dealing.

[B]

With a charity commission, I couldn't say I'm in a state of joy.

[A]

I work not every day.

[B]

It's perfect.

[A]

But you, but you, you stressed a moment ago that it's net positive, you.

[B]

Know, overall, if it, if I wasn't getting something emotionally out of this, I wouldn't be doing it.

[A]

It. No. And you've been doing it a long time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, thank you so much, John, for coming in to talk to me.

[B]

Well, thank you for the opportunity, James, and thank you for all the great work you're doing through the Big Give and other.

[A]

We'll do our best to continue that and thank you for your ongoing support for it. It's something that means a lot to us, so I'm very grateful. I asked two questions at the end of every podcast, I'm going to ask you the same.

[B]

Oh, you didn't warn me about this.

[A]

No, well, the, the first of them is, is what gets you up on a Monday morning, because at Reed, we love Mondays.

[B]

I've never had, you know, I don't really have. Ever since I stopped being a teenager, I've never had a problem getting up. You know, I mean, I, I, I'm, I'm a, I'm a lark, not an, an owl. So I, Yeah, I, I get up and, but I am a, you know, and this, I'm not proud of this, but, but I will. Something will have landed and it'll be, we need to get that done, you.

[A]

Know, so you have something on your mind you want to.

[B]

I've got, I've always got a to do list and, and I wish I didn't, but I do. So that's, that's what gets me to do list.

[A]

Gets you. That's great. And the last question is a question from my interview book. Why you 101 interview questions. Where do you see yourself in five years time?

[B]

Hopefully still above ground. And I think, you know, life is good when you're still experiencing new things. So I hope I'm in a situation where I'm still able to be meeting new people, learning new things, trying out new things myself.

[A]

Well, so do I. Thank you very much, John. John, thanks for coming to talk to me. James thank you, John, for joining me on All About Business. I'm your host, James Reid, chairman and CEO of Reid, a family run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you'd like to find out more about Reid, John and EQ investors, all links are in the show notes. See you next time.