Close-Up: Why Nabs is needed now more than ever before.(National Advertising Benevolent Society)

Zoe Osmond, the Nabs chief executive, reveals her plans to make the advertising charity more relevant, John Tylee writes.

She may have been the Nabs chief executive for just six months, but Zoe Osmond has already heard just about every cheap shot ever made about one of adland's most familiar but still much misunderstood institutions.

According to one sceptic, Nabs is for people 'who can't afford to put petrol in their Porsches'. According to another, Nabs bails out those who 'can't afford to pay their second mortgages'.

It's complete tosh, of course, but the jibes are emblematic of a climate of cynicism that's built up around Nabs as a body that only helps those who have generously helped themselves during the good times and haven't the faintest idea of what hard times really mean.

The wave of redundancies across the industry has largely put a stop to such nonsense and to the perception that calling the Nabs helpline is an admission of failure.

Yet old myths die hard and - along with a widespread ignorance about what Nabs actually does -makes fundraising, already problematic in the current economic climate, even more difficult. …