“I would like to buy an iPhone. How much is that? $700? OK, fine, here you go. But I don’t want more than $100 to be used to pay for your employees’ wages; I want most of my money to go to computer chips and other materials. I also don’t want you to use more than $70 on your rent, insurance, electricity for this store, or research and development, because I don’t want to buy from a store that has more than 10 per cent in overhead.”

This fictitious scenario, which was included in a blogpost on the US-based website NonprofitAF.com, highlights the contradictory attitudes that many people have towards core costs in the private and charity sectors. And it speaks to a broader truth that a lot of people simply don’t “get” charities. Many of us will have had conversations with friends or acquaintances who we had always counted as intelligent, right-thinking people, yet mention the charity sector and suddenly you are having a heated debate about why charities aren’t run by volunteers, why they have central offices, and why they sometimes spend money on looking after their staff.