Charity

A record more than 38,000 wills included gifts to charity last year, pushing the total donated to a new annual high.  The legacy notification company Smee & Ford said there were 38,178 charitable estates recorded in Engand and Wales in 2023, the highest number since it started tracking sector data in 2012.  The company said

Two women have been jailed for defrauding and laundering more than £634,000 from estates of the deceased, including money intended for charities. Laurna Porter, 69, and Julie Atkins, 68, both of Tamworth, were sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday to four years and 30 months in prison respectively.  Porter admitted fraud by abuse of position

The Royal Albert Hall has withdrawn a controversial proposal to add seats to some of its most lucrative boxes after opposition from peers.  The hall, which was established by royal charter and therefore needs parliament to approve changes to its constitution, wanted permission to add an extra two seats into each of its “grand tier”

The sector leader Simon Blake has been awarded £90,000 in damages after the actor-turned-politician Laurence Fox called him a paedophile on social media.  Simon Blake, chief executive of Mental Health First Aid England, filed a defamation lawsuit in 2021 with the RuPaul’s Drag Race star Crystal after they were subjected to the same slur by

The palliative care charity Sue Ryder has appointed James Sanderson, a current national director for NHS England, as its new chief executive. Sanderson, who has been the national director of community health services, personalised care and palliative and end-of-life care for NHS England since 2015, will take up the reins at the charity in August. 

Charity leaders are facing a sense that they are “on trial just for doing their job”, the chief executive of the Charity Commission has warned.  Speaking at an event for charity trustees in London today, Helen Stephenson said there was a risk that charity leaders are facing “disproportionately intense, unpleasant, and sometimes unfair personal scrutiny

The number of employees donating to charity through payroll giving has declined by 13 per cent since 2020, new research has found. The Charities Aid Foundation has warned that charities are “missing out on millions” through payroll giving, as its new research shows that the number of employees donating through the scheme and the total

A hospice charity is “under threat and in urgent need of a lifeline” due to a £1m hole in its finances, its chief executive has warned. Prospect Hospice, which is based in Wroughton, Wiltshire, said it costs £8.5m a year to run the charity. The charity said it had reduced the number of beds in

Hassun El-Zafar has been appointed director of the educational charity Edinburgh Science, succeeding its current chief who has led the charity for nearly 30 years. El-Zafar is currently the senior producer for public programmes at the science charity the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He is also a non-executive director for the Union of Justice,

A charity that campaigns against alcohol abuse has partly lost a trademark case around its use of the term “dry January”.  A ruling from the Intellectual Property Office found that Alcohol Change UK did not have the right to prevent other organisations using the phrase in certain circumstances.  The charity, which retains a trademark over

A firefighters support charity said it was “shocked and saddened” after one of its fundraisers admitted stealing more than £36,000 from the charity. Natasha Mason, 46, of Pewsham, Chippenham in Wiltshire, worked as a regional fundraising team manager for The Fire Fighters Charity between June 2010 and September 2020. She appeared in Salisbury Crown Court

Motivations for giving can be directly linked to a donor’s age group, new research has found. Part two of the Tomorrow’s Donor Today research, which will be published in full next week, argues that UK donors can be divided into five categories based on their motivations for giving, which can be predicted based on an

The Charity Commission has opened an inquiry into whether charitable funds raised by a sanctioned individual were sent to a news outlet that supports Hamas. The regulator said today it had opened a statutory inquiry to examine the actions of Aozma Sultana, who was sanctioned by the UK government following suspected involvement in providing financial

The co-founder of one the UK’s largest charitable grant-makers has died at the age of 63.  Julia Rausing, who set up the Julia and Hans Rausing Trust with her husband in 2014, died yesterday after an extended illness.  The charity is close to being in the top 10 largest charitable grant-making trusts in the UK

An activity centre owned by Girlguiding UK, and listed for sale with a guide price of £4m, has been sold and is set to reopen under new management, the charity has said.  Blackland Farm, in West Sussex, was one of five activity centres Girlguiding put up for sale last year, because the charity said it

Charities should be given an exemption from proposed reforms to leasehold law that could result in the Church of England losing about £35m, the body that manages the church’s assets has said. The government’s Leasehold and Freehold Bill proposes scrapping “marriage value”, which is an additional premium paid by leaseholders to the freeholder when a

A new VAT relief encouraging businesses to donate everyday items to charity will be consulted on, the government has announced. Under current rules, firms do not pay VAT on donated goods that are sold on, such as clothes, hygiene supplies and cleaning products. But if those goods are distributed for free instead of sold, VAT

The youth counselling charity TIC+ has appointed Claire Power-Browne as sole chief executive after six years co-leading the organisation. Power-Browne, who has been director of operations at the charity since 2017, has led it alongside Judith Bell, chief clinical officer. But the charity, which provides counselling services to young people aged nine to 21 in

More than half of charities disagree with the Fundraising Regulator’s decision to link the fundraising levy to the Consumer Price Index from 2025, according to the regulator’s consultation on its levy proposals. The regulator confirmed today it planned to implement an increase of 50 per cent for the largest fundraising charities in the amount they

One in five charity supporters aged over 40 say they have included a charitable gift in a will, up from one in seven in 2010, new figures show. Research published today by umbrella body Remember A Charity used data from its annual consumer benchmark study, which surveyed 2,001 charity supporters across the UK aged 40

An Islamic charity failed to hold valid elections for three years and attempted to introduce invalid reasons to reject membership applications, a Charity Commission inquiry has found. The regulator found serious misconduct and mismanagement at the Jamia Hanfia Ghosia Mosque and Princess Street Resource Centre, which operates under its working name Princess Street Mosque and

A social housing charity will close its social media account on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying that content on the platform is “often prejudicial, racist and deeply unpleasant”. Manningham Housing Association, which provides social housing for diverse communities in West Yorkshire, said it planned to withdraw from X after a review of its internal

Hospice charities are facing an estimated £77m deficit this year, new figures show. Research published today by the membership body Hospice UK is based on findings from its latest quarterly financial benchmarking survey, which includes figures from 86 hospice charities in Britain for the 2023/24 financial year.  Hospice UK said the figures were the worst

[embedded content] The RSPCA has rolled out a major rebrand for the first time in 50 years, which the 200-year-old animal welfare charity hopes will reflect its drive to become a “modern, forward-facing organisation”. The charity’s reimagined logo will be accompanied by a brand marketing campaign that will run across TV, cinema and social media

About one-third of British charities experienced some form of cyber security breach in the past year, according to new government data. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology published its Cyber Security Breaches Survey this week, which explores approaches to cyber security across different sectors.  Almost one in three (32 per cent) of charities experienced

A veteran’s charity has completed its sale of more than 150 flats for £80m to Chelsea Football Club. The Sir Oswald Stoll Foundation, more commonly known as Stoll, announced the sale of properties at its Sir Oswald Stoll Mansions housing site this week. Stoll trustees agreed a deal in principle to sell 157 flats housing

The Charity Commission has said it is looking into a food bank’s decision to refuse donations from a Doctor Who convention. The event, hosted by Bedford Who Charity Convention on 6 April, raised more than £17,000 for local charities including Bedford Foodbank. Bedford Foodbank initially thanked the convention for raising an “amazing” amount of money.

A music membership charity has appointed a co-chief executive as it adopts a shared leadership model. Seamus McGibbon has been appointed co-chief executive at Making Music, a charity that supports voluntary and amateur music groups, alongside its current chief executive Barbara Eifler, who has led the charity for a decade. McGibbon was chief executive of

The Charity Commission has said that a social media post that referred to “harm” caused by the transgender youth charity Mermaids was reposted by its account in error. Earlier today the regulator’s official account on X, formerly Twitter, reshared a post that described the transgender youth charity Mermaids as being “responsible for so much harm”.

St Peter’s Hospice has appointed Susan Hamilton (pictured) as its chief executive, following the retirement of its former leader Frank Noble. Hamilton takes up the role at the Bristol-based charity as an experienced healthcare professional with a career spanning more than 20 years in the sector. Prior to joining St Peter’s Hospice, Hamilton was director