“Trembling and alone on a crowded airfield” – Lessons for charities about cost & value

So there I was, almost in tears, lost in reverie, alone in a crowd on an airfield just outside Newark in Nottinghamshire. But what had happened, and why I am I telling you about it in a blog about charities?  You see, I was at this airfield to attend an antiques fair (I know what you’re thinking, my weekends must really fly by), when I came across a table of old football programmes. Now, forgive me, but it’s my affliction to be a lifelong Arsenal fan and a season ticket holder for the last 22 years. And what I found, after a few minutes of flicking through the piles, was the programme of the very first match I had attended. It was on Saturday 20 October, 1979, but I remember the game like it was yesterday. A nil nil draw versus Stoke City, but for this seven-year-old, it was all high-octane excitement. Hands trembling, I bought the programme for the marked price: £1.50. But for me it was worth so much more than that. And this historic memento is now framed and displayed for posterity (in my downstairs loo). Think about the difference between cost and value But what can charities learn from this somewhat particular experience? Well, I think it’s a particularly appropriate illustration of the distinction between cost and value, which charities should pay greater heed to. The programme would have cost 20p in 1979. I ‘bought it back’ a few decades later for £1.50. But what was its value? The significance of it to me emotionally, and the way it wa