Charities I support and contribute to

I support three charities by regular financial donations and by giving my time.

I think it is very important, before deciding to support a charity, to look carefully at the organisation. That way, the giver can be sure that the aims and objectives are what he wants to support, and also take care that the charity is properly run and uses the money efficiently.

My personal preference is for Utilitarian principles - to the greatest number, the greatest benefit. So my money doesn't go towards a £1 million machine to keep a very premature baby alive in the Western World.

That million pounds could save tens of thousands of lives - the lives which are lost when otherwise healthy children don't have access to clean water and oral rehydration salts.

Sightsavers International is a charity which helps support the blind, operate on conditions which can be helped, and educate blind children. It's not a large charity, but a well-run and valuable one, in my view.

Blindness is always a difficult condition, but can often be cured very cheaply. Sightsavers does a lot of cataract operations, for example, which are cheap, easy, and restore independence to older people who have lost or are losing their sight.

They also help deal with river blindness - a nasty illness caused by a parasite carried by flies. Eventually, infection can lead to untreatable blindness, but if picked up and dealt with earlier, can be sorted out. It's a disease that has caused half a million people in west Africa to go blind, and blights whole communities.

Trachoma is also a major focus. This is a repeated infection which eventually can cause people to go blind. The infections over time cause scarring on the eyelids, which scratch the eyeball and damage it. It's incredibly painful, as well. It can be helped - the infection can be cured, the eyeball can be protected from the scratching, and infection can be prevented, as well.

Blind children in too much of the world are thrown on the scrapheap at birth, and this charity's work in providing education and support is very valuable.

I like and value this charity, which I think provides a lot of help and good value for money as well. I have no link with it other than as a giver.

St. Mungo's is a homelessness charity in London. Many people who are homeless have issues with mental health, physical health, and addictions, and the roots of their difficulties need to be considered as well as a long-term goal of getting people involved in society again. St. Mungo's does all of that, and helps people get back into work as well. They also try to help people at risk of being made homeless, and run emergency shelters when the weather is particularly bad.

They are a well-run and impressive charity - my only link with it is as a donor.

This remarkable London charity was founded in 1739 to run a Foundling Hospital. This was a home for abandoned and orphaned children in Bloomsbury, central London. It was the first such place in London, and took in babies, brought them up, and educated them. At a time when 1/3rd of children born alive died by the time they were a year old, and another 1/3rd by the age of 5, the Hospital managed to reduce infant mortality hugely. Children were placed with foster mothers until they were 5, and then brought up in the Hospital, and apprenticed to trades as teenagers.

I recently read a fascinating book about Thomas Coram, how he founded the hospital and bullied the wealthy into supporting and paying for it, and how the hospital was run. The way in which the charity operated changed surprisingly little from the time it was founded until the 20th century.

I don't think anyone would say that the system was ideal. Many of the children suffered, in effect, the loss of two mothers - their birth mothers, and their fosters mothers all over again at the age of 5. There are several letters quoted in the book from birth mothers wanting to reclaim their children, and foster mothers wanting to keep them, and they were all disappointed.

Nevertheless, the charity and hospital saved thousands of children from starvation, abuse, and early death, and fed, clothed and educated them at a time when many children had none of those things.

The Hospital closed after the Second World War, and the re-named Coram Family is an organisation that now works with vulnerable children and parents, runs centres for families, and organises adoption and long-term fostering.

The Foundling Hospital site is now an impressive children's park, called Coram's Fields. An adult can only enter the park if he is with a child. There is a range of facilities from indoor playgroups, playgrounds, sandpits, climbing frames, animals, and tennis and football facilities. They also run a nursery school.

I donate to this charity, and with my son, we attend Coram's Fields, which he loves.