Charity is unforgiving
What’s dismaying is Avery’s self-aggrandisement and bombast. To put it kindly, he has been big-noting. The controversy over philanthropist Sir Ray Avery’s cancelled Eden Park charity concert has raised some unexpected but useful questions. In this Give a little age, how can we tell which charities to trust, and which are most effective? This fundraiser was pitched as saving babies in poor countries. Yet it turns out there’s no reliable timeline for when this baby-saving might begin to occur, despite the charity mogul’s deep pockets and high media profile. At first, it looked a simple case of nimbyism by locals, who opposed Avery’s concert because they suspected Trojan horse commercial ambitions on the part of Eden Park’s administrators. Then questions arose about the status of Avery’s charitable work, and concern…
