Charities should not hold back from engaging in political activity and on emotive issues on social media such as race or immigration, even where they risk triggering controversy, the voluntary sector watchdog has said.
Guidance to be issued by the Charity Commission this week makes it clear charities are entitled to campaign robustly online in support of their mission and beneficiaries. To do so they must have the backing of their trustee boards, keep within the law, and act with “respect and tolerance.”
The guidance, which emerges just weeks after a political and media row over a tweet sent by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) that accused ministers of being liars, is intended to help charities navigate what is expected to be an increasingly charged and polarised political atmosphere in the run-up to the next general election.
In an interview with the Guardian, the Charity Commission chair, Orlando Fraser, called it “supportive guidance” that clarified the law in an often politically fraught area.
He added: “I will robustly defend charities’ right to campaign lawfully, even where such campaigning covers sensitive or politically divisive ground.”
The RSPB post, for which the charity apologised after an outcry, led to calls from a Conservative MP for the Charity Commission to strip it of its charitable status, amid claims from some quarters that the post showed the RSPB had strayed from its supposedly core mission of “nesting boxes and bird feeders” into politics.
However, the guidance is clear the law allows charities to campaign and undertake political activity in pursuit of their charitable aims – though they are not allowed to support or oppose a particular political party, and its trustees must ensure the charities’ activities broadly align with the delivery of their charitable mission.
The clarification is likely to be welcomed in the voluntary sector, which hopes the guidance will help charities defend themselves against a wave of aggressive criticism from rightwing politicians and media, seen as an attempt to undermine charities’ legal rights and restrict their legitimate role in public debate.
The sector has become increasingly concerned that hostile “culture war” attacks on charities by politicians and media over so-called “woke” issues such as race, immigration and the climate crisis have had a “chilling” effect and left some charities wary of campaigning or unsure whether they can or should speak out.
Last month, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, called refugee charities “politically motivated activists masquerading as humanitarians”, and claimed they had “no regard for the will of the British people”.
The Tory party deputy chair, Lee Anderson, earlier this year called Calais refugee charities “just as bad as people-smugglers”.
The National Trust, Barnardo’s, Runnymede Trust and Care4Calais have each been the subject of high-profile regulatory complaints in recent years accusing them of breaching charity law by, for example, focusing on “woke” issues thought to be outside their charitable mission such as race equality, or by challenging government policy in the courts. In each case they were exonerated by the Charity Commission.
Fraser said he was not going to “give a running commentary on what politicians say about the voluntary sector”.
But he added: “I would discourage people outside the sector from attacking charities for being too ‘woke’ because it has no meaning for us in regulatory terms and I don’t think it is helpful.”
Although it confirms charities are allowed to use social media platforms for campaigning and political purposes, the guidance advises them to act “reasonably and responsibly” online, conduct themselves with “respect and tolerance” when they do so, and adopt clear social media policies for staff and volunteers to follow.
There is no requirement in law for charities to act with respect or show tolerance but Fraser insisted the voluntary sector should behave differently to other organisations including political parties, in setting high standards for public discourse. Posting with respect and tolerance would help mitigate criticism of charities, he said.
He added: “At a time when there is widespread concern about the angry and divisive tone of public debate, I believe that charities have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to lead the way by modelling a better kind of public discourse than the aggression we sadly often see in party politics.”
The RSPB incident was an example of what the commission would like charities to guard against when using social media, he said.
But he praised the charity for acting swiftly when it realised what had happened. “I think they [the RSPB] should be given credit for recognising it [the tweet] was a mistake, and for apologising,” he said.
Fraser, a commercial barrister and one-time Tory parliamentary candidate who has chaired the commission for 18 months, was initially regarded with suspicion by many in the sector who feared he was a government placeman.
However, he has won over many with his independence and focus on charities’ legal rights.
