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gy, 2004). Although this is national research we know from our own experience that these attitudes mirror those of our donors. However communications by Saint Michael' is not traditionally strong at demonstrating where and how donors money is spent. The result is that donors/ potential looking to assess the worth of our charity by these measures could be left wanting, leading them to believe that the claims made by our charity are untrustworthy and inauthentic. The knock-on effect of this could be a drop in the positive associations of being seen as authentic and a chance that donors choose not to accept our claims. As people decide what they purchase and what they don't based on how real they think the offering is (Gilmore and Pine II, 2007, quoted in Edwards, 2009, p.7) this could be disasterous for charities who rely on donations. There is no reason why we shouldn't apply this concept to charities, because the only difference is that instead of buying a tangible product, they are buying into an intangible belief of how the world should be.

This is a working example of how authenticity cannot be claimed but can only be realised as part of an organisation's reflective interaction with its environment (Ferrara, 2004, cited in Edwards, 2009, p.4). Edwards (2009) goes on to say that authenticity isn't secure and ‘……..organisations must constantly negotiate discursive and practical challenges to their claims from those who do not accept their version of the world (2009, p.11). In this case the changes in the social context( the attitudes of donors) are creating the symbols that represent an authentic experience with a charity and therefore charities, like Saint Michael's, would be wise to include demonstrations of impact, transparency and accountability in their communication or risk losing vital support.

Saint Michael's could also be at risk of losing the support of another stakeholder group due to issues around authenticity. Since 2007 the original group of volunteers who helped set up Saint Michael's have become increasingly negative about the charity, critical of what they call its increasingly business-like manner, which devalues their contributions. This change from trusted and loyal supporters to critical supporters' co-incided with the implementation of the charity's new five year strategy of service improvement and expansion, which aims to double the number of people the charity could care for by 2012. Although this plan was embraced by some stakeholder groups, such as NHS funders, corporate supporters and regulators, the increased professionalism, investment and staffing levels interpreted differently by this group of volunteers. They viewed the charity as becoming far to business like and spending too much money on staff and facilities, when the job could be done by volunteers.

This situation demonstrates how claims of authenticity are not received passively but are defined and interpreted by the audiences that receive them (Edwards, 2009). Within this paper Edwards (2009) highlights research by Grayson and Martinec (2004) and Beverlend, Lindgreen, and Vink (2008) to demonstrate how people perceive different types of authenticity using different cues. Both these pieces of research concluded that although an organisation can present itself using certain cues the way these are interpreted is defined by the audience rather than the producer. Therefore control over what is authentic is impo