This looks like a big, prestigious organisation: its head office is a modern, eight-storey building opposite the entrance to Moorgate underground station in the City of London. It had an income of £243 million in 2018, which gives it roughly the same turnover as, for example, Caffè Nero, which in that year had nearly 650 coffee shops in the UK and Ireland. There are almost 4,000 staff in this concrete-and-glass building and in branches around the country. The chief executive has a team of seven directors who answer to him and in 2018 was paid a salary of £173,000. Not a fat cat by City standards, but undoubtedly a high earner.

So is this a financial or professional services company, perhaps, or a large accountancy practice? No – it's actually a charity. It's the British Red Cross, founded in 1870, the work of which ranges from relief in UK disasters, such as flooding, campaigning against modern slavery and supporting refugees. In the COVID-19 epidemic its volunteers freed up hospital beds by helping patients go home after treatment and looking after them. It also helps with overseas disasters, working with the 190-strong International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.

The chief executive since 2014 is Mike Adamson, who has in the past also worked for a consultancy firm in the private sector and an NHS primary care trust in the public sector. He says the demands of leading a large organisation are similar across the sectors, including extensive travel and work in the evenings and at weekends:

At the other end of the scale from the British Red Cross is the Peak and Northern Footpaths Society, a small charity that was established in 1894 to make sure footpaths are kept open.