Charity

The 2022 London Marathon will be held on 2 October next year, event organisers have announced.  This will be the third year in a row that the marathon will take place in the autumn rather than its traditional spring slot, following disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.  The last full race was held in April

Charities are being asked for their views on how employers use personal data as part of a consultation on a planned update to the Information Commissioner’s guidance.  The Information Commissioner’s Office is calling on charities, as well as businesses and unions, to help the regulator support employers to use artificial intelligence and other new technologies without affecting people’s

The UK government is being urged to increase support for civil society in Afghanistan as one animal charity fears its 71 staff “are not safe” since the Taliban took control of the country. Paul Farthing, the founder of animal rescue charity Nowzad, which is registered in both the UK and United States, has called on the government

More than 30 staff at the Royal Parks charity began two weeks of strike action yesterday over pay, conditions and the sacking of one of their colleagues. The staff, who are employed by the contractor Just Ask to providing toilet and building cleaning services at the eight parks maintained by the charity, are calling for their

The BBC has refused to comment on reports it plans to donate £1.5m to a charity chosen by the royal family. Reports emerged in a number of newspapers over the weekend, including The Times, that the donation is part of an attempt to make amends for Martin Bashir’s Panorama interview with Princess Diana in 1995.

The Charity Commission has declined to comment on whether it is considering any regulatory action against the Institute of Economic Affairs following a decision by the media regulator. Ofcom this week cleared the LBC radio presenter James O’Brien of any wrongdoing after he claimed on air two years ago that the charitable think tank was

The water and sanitation charity WaterAid has appointed Jennie York as its next director of fundraising and communications.  York, who previously spent almost five years at the charity, latterly as leader of the direct marketing team, joins from Barnardo’s, where she has been director of fundraising for the past three years.  Before joining Barnardo’s, York

An employee at an asylum charity has accepted an undisclosed out-of-court settlement after she said she was told her allegations of racism within the charity were part of a “personal agenda”. Ishah Jawaid joined Assist Sheffield as a client support manager in February 2019. The charity supports people who have been unsuccessful in their applications

An additional £4m is being pumped into a fund aimed at creating thousands of new volunteering, social action and community activities for young people. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport announced today that it would invest a further £2m into #iwill fund, which would be match-funded by the National Lottery Community Fund. Since

A charity that supports people affected by a spinal cord injury harassed an employee because of her disability, an employment tribunal has ruled. Two other complaints brought against the Back Up Trust related to reasonable adjustments and indirect discrimination partially succeeded after the charity failed to keep course evaluation documents confidential.  Two additional complaints of

In this episode of the Third Sector Podcast, features and analysis writer Rebecca Cooney and news editor Andy Ricketts chat about what the  Community Life Survey revealed about how volunteering changed during the pandemic. The Community Life Survey is an annual government exercise that polls more than 10,000 people in England about a range of

Charity retailers lost out on an estimated £366m during the third lockdown earlier this year, new figures indicate.  Data from the Charity Retail Association’s quarterly market analysis for January to March shows the average charity shop lost out on £33,150 because of the closure of non-essential stores.  When that figure is multiplied by the 11,041

Charities are being invited to apply for up to £300,000 in funding for schemes that use the arts and comedy to challenge mental health stigma. The grant-maker Comic Relief and snack manufacturer Walkers have launched a new fund worth up to £1.7m that will award up to 12 charities grants of between £100,000 to £300,000.

Standardised accounting and greater transparency in the reporting of international charity finances could be brought in within five years if new proposals are finalised.  Membership bodies have welcomed the announcement after the first non-profit organisation international financial reporting guidance was drawn up last year by a collective of accounting experts. Their aim was to simplify

The fundraising campaign to buy the Royal National Lifeboat Institution a new life-saving hovercraft called The Flying Farage has hit its £100,000 target.  But the fundraiser’s organiser, Simon Harris, has said it may not be practical to name any vessel after the right-wing political figure and GB News presenter Nigel Farage after all. The GoFundMe page

Direct business support to the vast majority of social sector organisations works out at less than £500 per business per year, latest research shows.  A report from the think tank Pro Bono Economics calculates that businesses in England contribute support worth about £2.4bn a year to, which PBE said was just 0.06 per cent of

The government has pledged to examine the value for money provided by spending £2m on consultants to assist with assessing bids made by charities for emergency funds.  A report from the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee in June criticised the government for failing to provide “a clear rationale for spending up to £2m of

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations has announced it has begun a formal independent governance review to assess whether its current structures are “fit for purpose”. In a statement published on the membership body’s website on Friday, Priya Singh, chair of the umbrella body, said the review would examine the organisation’s governance structures, processes, relationships

The Disasters Emergency Committee’s income more than tripled last year after more than £30m was given to its coronavirus appeal. The charity’s latest accounts, for the year to the end of March, show that it had an income of £33.1m compared with £9.9m in 2019/20. The DEC’s income tends to fluctuate considerably year on year,

The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into the refugee charity Care4Calais because of serious concerns about its governance. The regulator said it opened the inquiry into the volunteer-run charity in August last year because of issues including a lack of clarity about who had been validly appointed as a trustee and how decisions

Wanda Wyporska, chief executive of The Equality Trust for the past five years, has been appointed to the top job at the family history charity the Society of Genealogists. Wyporska, who is a trustee of the charity leaders body Acevo, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the youth charity Redthread, is also a historian and a

The Fundraising Regulator has recorded a “significant increase” in complaints about fundraising over the past few months and is trying to understand why, its head of policy has said.  Speaking at a webinar held jointly with the Chartered Institute of Fundraising  about safe fundraising following the lifting of pandemic restrictions, Charlotte Urwin said it was not yet

ActionAid UK increased its income to its highest level in three years in 2020 despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, new figures show. The charity’s latest accounts show that its income rose to £50.3m last year, up from £49.1m in 2019. The increase in income combined with a reduction in spending meant the charity,

The Charity Commission has issued official warnings to two charities that have repeatedly failed to file their annual documents on time.  In an update about its ongoing class inquiry into charities that have been late filing their annual returns for two or more of the past five years, the regulator said that between April 2020

In this episode of the Third Sector Podcast, features and analysis writer Rebecca Cooney and editor Emily Burt discuss whether the pandemic has prompted a leadership exodus from the charity sector.  Rebecca wrote about this issue for the most recent edition of Third Sector (full article here), exploring whether charity chief executives are stepping down from

Rhodri Davies is to leave the Charities Aid Foundation to take up a new role at the Pears Foundation.  Davies, who is head of policy at CAF, has worked at the organisation since September 2010, when he joined as a policy manager. He previously worked at the think tank Policy Exchange and the recruitment firm

The healthcare charity MSI Reproductive Choices has defended awarding almost £1.6m in contracts to a company whose president is also one of its trustees. Philip Harvey, who has been a trustee of the charity since 1992, is also the president of DKT International, a company he founded in 1989.  The company describes itself as a

The Alzheimer’s Society will be The Football Association’s official charity partner for the next two years.  The charity said the partnership would aim to use the sport’s reach to increase support and generate significant funds and awareness of dementia. A spokesperson for the charity said the FA’s previous partnership, which was with the mental health

An auditor’s report found “major failings” at a town council after it was revealed to have awarded £50,000 worth of contracts to a charity run by two current councillors. Auditing Solutions carried out an internal review of Porthcawl Town Council’s finances for 2020/21.  They found the council, in south Wales, did not formally tender contracts

The National Lottery Community Fund has said that two missing unencrypted disks were the cause of the data breach that it warned charities about last month.  The grant-maker had said that more than six years’ worth of contact and bank details had potentially been exposed to fraud. It said the breach involved data provided to