Today we launch a piece of research, comparing charities providing out of school hours activities for children in Italy, with similar organisations in the UK. The report, Everyday cares, was commissioned by an Italian foundation, to help it understand the success of the Italian charities it funds.
Comparisons across countries may seem tricky, but they can be done. Using an adapted version of NPC’s charity analysis framework, we found that charities in both countries recognise improvements in well-being as one of the main differences they can make to the lives of the children, although interestingly those in Italy focus on better relationships and those in the UK emphasise improved self-esteem.
Of course context must be taken into account—Italian charities wanting children to have better relationships is perhaps a reflection of the traditional emphasis in Italy on the importance of the family, for example.
But cross-country comparisons can help charities to:
- Identify their strengths and weaknesses; we found charities in Italy were better at involving the family but UK charities were better at promoting independence.
- Question why they are doing things in a particular way. An Italian charity may reconsider its strict attendance requirement after finding out that charities in the UK think making attendance voluntary encourages children to value activities more, for example.
- Learn from the results of others. We found that charities in both countries struggle to demonstrate what difference they make, particularly to the well-being of children. Finding out about what charities in other countries are doing to measure results can be useful; the Italian charities were particularly interested to learn about our well-being questionnaire.
