Charity

The animal welfare charity Mayhew has appointed Sherine Wheeler as its next chief executive.  Wheeler, who has been a consultant and strategic adviser since last year, is the long-term successor to Caroline Yates, who last year moved to become the charity’s head of international projects and relations after 14 years in the top role.  Wheeler

A Scottish charity has been forced to cancel its 50th anniversary event after supporters said the cost-of-living crisis meant they could not afford tickets. Perth & Kinross Association of Voluntary Service said it started planning a Golden Anniversary Ball in 2020 but dropped the event this week. Supporters told the charity they were “reluctant to

A housing charity that featured in a BBC Panorama documentary this week has said it is reviewing all aspects of its governance and compliance work. The programme alleged that the founder of My Space Housing Solutions used the charity to inflate the value of properties before he sold them on for private profit. The charity

The charity sector must prepare for “an all-hands-on-deck crisis” as inflation bites, experts said today. Economists at the charity think tank Pro Bono Economics issued the warning after official figures showed inflation rose to its highest rate for 40 years. Jane Ide, chief executive of Acevo, told Third Sector that rising costs had charities “over

One of the country’s biggest social care charities has spent about £1m from its reserves so far this year to cover Covid-19 absences. Community Integrated Care said it had been forced to fund growing levels of sick pay from its reserves since the government closed a scheme that covered those costs. CIC warned that other

The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into concerns that a banned trustee is still working for his charity. Alan Blacker, a founding trustee of the Joint Armed Forces Legal Advocacy Service, was disqualified from sitting on any charity board in 2020 after being convicted of dishonestly claiming benefits. Blacker applied for a waiver

The Disasters Emergency Committee’s appeal to support people in Afghanistan has raised more than £50m. The charity, which brings together 15 major humanitarian charities to respond to major emergencies around the world, launched the appeal on 14 December last year. The DEC said its appeal was supporting hundreds of thousands of people in Afghanistan, where

More than half of charities are struggling to fill staff vacancies, new research has found. Analysis by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that 53 per cent of charities were trying to find staff for “hard-to-fill vacancies”. This was a higher proportion than all sectors apart from education and transport providers, and above

Parkrun’s founder has resigned from the charity’s trustee board and joined the senior management team, as the organisation overhauls its governance. Paul Sinton-Hewitt, who organised the first Parkrun event in 2004, was a founding trustee of Parkrun Global when it became a charity in 2017.  Parkrun Global confirmed that he would now sit on the

One-third of Comic Relief staff are being affected by a restructure intended to help the charity implement a new strategy.  The charity has begun a month-long consultation with 55 of its approximately 165 staff over a reorganisation that will result in the loss of some jobs alongside the creation of others.  Comic Relief said it

Cash donations to the Natural History Museum more than doubled in 2021/22, as it continued to recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The latest accounts for the museum, which is an exempt charity, show it received £6.3m in public donations in the year to March 2022, up from £2.6m in 2020/21. The figure

The cancer support charity Look Good Feel Better has appointed a new chief executive. Mark Flannery, executive director of income generation at St Gemma’s Hospice, will take up his new role next month. Before joining St Gemma’s he worked for the Skills Network, which provides advice and training. He succeeds Sarahjane Robertson, who left Look

Charities have been encouraged to strengthen their bullying policies to deal with unacceptable behaviour in the voluntary sector. In a statement today, the Charity Commission said it expected trustees to handle issues arising in their charities, but warned it would “intervene where there are concerns that trustees are not complying with their responsibilities”. The regulator

A charity linked to Cancer Research UK has apologised after a prospective researcher was told their application had been rejected because they were Russian. The Glasgow-based Beatson Institute, which specialises in the biology of cancer, said it had apologised to the researcher after a “misunderstanding” caused by complex visa rules and international sanctions. The charity

Institutional racism was “allowed to fester” at the global health charity Wellcome, a report has found.  An evaluation of its anti-racism programme, released by the UK’s richest charity, found that “limited progress” had been made since the work started in 2020, with some staff worried that the agenda had lost momentum. One in five black

Kidney Wales is in talks with race organisers after the cancellation of a running event that has raised more than £250,000 for the charity in previous years. Ross Evans, managing director of the health charity, told Third Sector the charity was “truly saddened” that the event, scheduled for 4 September, was not going ahead. Kidney Wales

One of the country’s largest social care charities lost 155 members of staff last year because of government rules requiring carers to have received the Covid-19 vaccination. The employees at the Order of St John Care Trust, some of whom resigned “in anticipation of the deadline” to get vaccinated, represented 3 per cent of the charity’s

Third Sector has launched an anonymous online survey that invites people working in the voluntary and not-for-profit sector to share their views on and experiences of sexual harassment in fundraising.  In recent years, the title has reported extensively on allegations of sexual harassment perpetrated against fundraisers and complaints over the handling of sexual misconduct.  As

The Charity Commission has opened a compliance case into a grant-maker that received £1.5m in unsecured loans from one of its trustees. The Barrowman Foundation was founded in 2017 and is funded solely through money lent by its founder, the businessman Doug Barrowman. The regulator said it had identified concerns with the charity, but did not

Amnesty International UK has defended the organisation’s latest research into the Ukrainian war after Amnesty’s Ukraine chief resigned in protest at its release. The research, which was published by AIUK and other Amnesty offices around the world last week, says the Ukrainian military has “turned civilian objects into military targets” by working from populated areas

The Charity Commission has disqualified two trustees from a charity that has faced three inquiries since 2017. The commission said Hartley Hanley and Mike Bisson, both trustees at the Moss Side and Hulme Community Development Trust, were responsible for “persistent and prolonged” failures at the charity. The commission first contacted the Manchester-based charity five years ago,

The NSPCC’s trading arm contributed more than £1m to the charity in 2021/22 as the company’s revenues returned to pre-pandemic levels. The donation is nearly double the amount made the previous year, when trading and fundraising events were affected by months of coronavirus restrictions. The figures are included in the NSPCC Trading Company accounts for

A leading social care charity has urged the government to provide additional funding for the sector, which it says is “teetering on a precipice”.  Hft, which provides support to people with learning disabilities and their families, issued the warning after MPs on the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee told the government that social

Connect For Life, Ignite Hubs and the community interest company Give Your Best are among the charities in the running to win a special recognition award at the 2022 Third Sector Awards.  The awards, which recognise the achievements of charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises, feature 32 categories, including Fundraising Team of the Year and

Charity trustees will have more freedom to make payments if disputes arise over legacy gifts, under legal changes coming into force later this year. Boards will be free to make payments of up to £20,000 without needing to consult the Charity Commission, depending on the size of the organisation, if trustees feel they have a

The RNIB has increased its senior leadership team from 12 to 16 people as part of a top-level overhaul.  The sight-loss charity said the move, which has also involved a renaming of previous SLT positions, was “designed to give us the logical structure to deliver our ambitious new strategy, achieve our vision and deliver impact

Charities should be audited to “weed out” organisations that promote extremism, the Conservative Party leadership candidate Rishi Sunak has said.  Sunak, who is campaigning in the race to become the next prime minister, said this week that “there have been too many examples of publicly-funded charities” accused of supporting extremist ideologies. Asked to name one

Unite the Union has threatened to take legal action against the social care charity Hestia as part of a row over union activity. Unite said the charity’s management contacted some Unite members at Hestia shortly after the union put in a pay claim in June.  The letters threatened staff with potential disciplinary procedures if they

A health charity has appointed a new leader following the retirement of its founding chief executive. Jonathan Pearce took over as chief executive of the York-based charity Antibiotic Research UK this week. He has worked in the charity sector for 20 years, and previously led voluntary organisations including Lymphoma Action and the blood cancer charity

Firms run by a trustee at the Victoria & Albert Museum hosted a further five private events at the venue without the permissions needed under charity rules, it has emerged. The V&A confirmed that three companies linked to Ben Elliot, a trustee who is also chair of the Conservative Party, arranged the events between 2017