Charity

A military charity has suspended its operations after experiencing “reputational damage” that has “made operating very difficult”, according to its chair of trustees.  The Portsmouth-based charity Forgotten Veterans UK announced on Facebook that it had been “extremely difficult for the charity to run effectively” in recent months.  The Charity Commission opened a regulatory compliance case

A woman has been jailed after raising £34,000 for people affected by the Australian bushfires but only donating £10 to charity.  Cambridgeshire Constabulary said that in 2020, Kerry Palin, 27 and of Rushden, Northamptonshire, started an “equestrian-themed online auction on Facebook” which she claimed was to raise money for charity. The page exploded in popularity

The daughter of the record-breaking fundraiser Sir Captain Tom Moore received payments of thousands of pounds to her private company for work in the name of the Captain Tom Foundation, it has been claimed.  BBC Newsnight reported that Hannah Ingram-Moore’s family company was paid “thousands of pounds” for her involvement in the 2021 and 2022

The Charity Commission has announced statutory inquiries into two connected charities because of concerns about potential misconduct or mismanagement. Investigations have been launched into the Jewish education charities Dalaid and the Schwarzschild Foundation, which both operate out of the same building and share trustee Maurice Levenson. Levenson is also the chair of Dalaid, according to

Net income at Guide Dogs fell by 92 per cent last year, new figures show. The charity’s accounts for 2022 show its surplus dropped from £43m in 2021 to £3.4m last year.  The documents show the charity recorded an income of £142m in 2022, down £11m on the previous year. Guide Dogs said the 2021

Trustees at the British Museum have launched an independent security review after precious items, some dating back to the 15th century BC, were found to be missing, stolen or damaged. A member of staff has been dismissed and the museum said it would be taking legal action against the individual, the charity said in a

The combined pension liability of the largest charities in England and Wales rose by £2.5bn over the past year, new figures show.  A report from financial advice firm Hymans Robertson finds that the aggregate defined benefit liabilities of the largest 40 charities in England and Wales by annual income totalled £12bn in their most recent

London-based charities that support women and girls experiencing domestic abuse and sexual violence are being invited to apply for a share of £3m.  Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, said the funds were part of a £117m investment to support this cause. The £3m fund will provide two-year grants of between £30,000 and £100,000 for

Donations by text message to charities fell by 28.1 per cent last year, latest figures show.  Data published by the Phone-paid Services Authority shows the amount donated was £35.9m in the year to the end of March, down from £50m in the previous year. It is down from a record £65.8m in 2020/21. The report, which

Girlguiding UK will press ahead with proposals to sell its five activity centres, affecting almost 100 staff.  The charity said in May that it was planning to sell the sites because they had been losing money for years and would cost more than £20m to bring up to standard. It has this week confirmed it

The chief executive of MSI Reproductive Choices has received a £233,068 bonus in 2022 – doubling his annual salary. The reproductive healthcare charity’s annual accounts for 2022, which were filed with Companies House last week, show bonus payments to Simon Cooke rose from £229,068 last year. His base salary is £233,068, the accounts show. The

The Bone Cancer Research Trust has appointed Will Burchell as its new chief executive. Burchell, who joins from the same role at the Nottinghamshire Deaf Society, succeeds Mat Cottle-Shaw, who has become chief executive at Rotherham Hospice after eight years at the trust, the last almost two as chief executive. The Bone Cancer Research Trust,

Charities have welcomed a decision by the Mayor of London to boost cash support to change their vehicles to ensure they are compliant with the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone scheme. Sadiq Khan announced last week that he would increase the funds available under the associated scrappage scheme by £50m to £160m. As

The conservation charity the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust is set to receive a donation of almost £24,000 from a farming business that was found to be illegally spreading waste sludge.  The Environment Agency said J E Hartley Ltd, of Thorganby, near York, had submitted an enforcement undertaking after repeatedly spreading waste sludge on its own

SOS Children’s Villages UK has filed a serious incident report with the Charity Commission after undercover footage showed fundraisers working on its behalf appearing to break the fundraising code.  An investigation conducted by WalesOnline involved a reporter seeking work at two connected agencies called Vantage and Solution Cardiff.  The companies were raising funds for SOS

A UK charity has pledged £29m to train thousands of young people in heritage skills. The cash injection comes from the Hamish Ogston Foundation, which said it was the largest single commitment to the cause ever made.  The funding will pay for up to 2,700 new young people in the UK and across the Commonwealth to

A group of advice charities have launched a summer campaign to highlight a threat posed by “imposter firms” that they say are trying to cash in on their names. StepChange, Citizens Advice and the Money Advice Trust are concerned that rogue companies are running copycat advertisements online that look very similar to their own official

The defunct telephone fundraising agency Listen left legacy debts of more than £3.3m to unsecured creditors, including thousands of pounds to the housing and homelessness charity Shelter, documents show. The details have been revealed in documents submitted to Companies House last week by the firm of liquidators appointed to wind down the business. Listen, which

CAF Bank has defended its financial position after a national newspaper reported it had made “significant paper losses” on investments last year.  The Financial Times reported over the weekend that CAF Bank, which supports more than 14,000 charities, had “amassed significant paper losses on its bond holdings in the wake of rising interest rates”.  It

The Scout Association has earmarked more than £1m from its reserves to cover the costs of evacuating thousands of UK campers from an international gathering in South Korea. Tens of thousands of teenagers at the World Scout Jamboree in the south-western county of Buan have been removed from the campsite because of issues including extreme

The healthcare charity Nuffield Health recorded income of more than £1.2bn in 2022, latest accounts show.  The charity, which runs 37 hospitals and 114 health and fitness centres in the UK, said the increase was down to factors including a growth in hospital activity plus a rise of more than 10 per cent in its

The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into a heart disease charity that has not filed any accounts since 2019.  The regulator said it was also concerned about financial record-keeping and the level of charitable expenditure at the Have a Heart Foundation, which was registered in 2013 to raise awareness of and support patients

A Cumbria-based charity that supports children and young people has appointed Teresa Jennings as its new chief executive. She joins the Brathay Trust after spending eight years at the helm of n-compass, a health and social care charity based in Preston, Lancashire, which grew from 70 employees to 170 and increased its turnover from £2.1m

A 13-year-old fundraiser has raised more than £1,000 for the homelessness charity Emmaus UK after camping in his garden for more than a year. Billy began sleeping in his family’s garden on 17 July 2022 after he was given a teepee for his birthday. He originally aimed to spend 100 nights outdoors and raise £150

The Disasters Emergency Committee’s appeal to support people affected by the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria has passed £150m. The DEC said the appeal, which was launched in the wake of the massive earthquakes that struck the region in February, had become the third largest in its 60-year history.  The appeal has raised £151.8m so

Charities have reiterated calls for the UK government to restore overseas aid spending to previous levels after an impact assessment warned the reduction could cost thousands of lives.  An impact assessment produced by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, published today by MPs on the International Development Committee, predicts that almost 200,000 women across Africa

Charities should look to build alliances within and beyond civil society to protect the narrowing “democratic space”, a new report urges. The publication, Defending our Democratic Space, published today by the Sheila McKechnie Foundation and the think tank Civil Exchange, warns of the increased threats to the UK’s democratic space, which it defines as the

Daniel Fluskey, director of policy and communications at the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, is to step down.  Fluskey, who joined the then-Institute of Fundraising as head of policy and research in 2013, is to join the National Aids Trust in October as director of policy, research and influencing.  His time at the membership body has encompassed

The Charity Commission has dropped the use of the phrase “ethical investment” in updated guidance. The regulator has today published updated guidance on charities and investments, known as CC14. The commission had promised to revise the guidance after the High Court’s “Butler-Sloss” ruling last year, which found that trustees can exclude investing in areas that

The British Red Cross has appointed Clive MacTavish as its chief financial officer.  MacTavish, who joined the BRC in January as interim finance chief, was previously CFO at the development finance company British International Investment.  He succeeds Martin Halliwell, who left the BRC in December. The British Red Cross is one of the UK’s biggest