Charity

Ian Karet has been named as the interim chair of the Charity Commission.  A partner at the law firm Linklaters, he has been a member of the regulator’s board since January 2019.  The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said Karet would take up the interim role from tomorrow until 26 August, while the

The homelessness charity St Mungo’s wrongfully dismissed an employee who had been attacked by a resident with two knives, an employment tribunal has ruled. New tribunal documents show that the charity wrongfully dismissed the claimant, named in the papers only as Mr M Finnerty, after deciding he responded to a violent incident in a way

Camila Batmanghelidjh has called on the Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove to apologise to the charity’s former staff and service users for what she said were unfulfilled promises to support the collapsed charity Kids Company.  The founder and former chief executive of the charity was being interviewed on BBC Radio 4 during Woman’s Hour about

An independent investigation at Barnardo’s found evidence of racism and racially motivated behaviour in the charity’s fundraising department, the charity has revealed.  The inquiry last year concluded that the department’s leadership had failed to address such behaviour and a number of the charity’s staff are under formal independent disciplinary investigation, Barnardo’s said in a statement.  The

The Charity Commission has put Oxfam GB back on a standard regulatory footing after concluding that the charity had made “significant improvements on safeguarding”.  The regulator opened a statutory inquiry into the charity in February 2018 after it emerged that Oxfam had failed to adequately report the extent of sexual misconduct allegations by project workers

A working group is being set up by the government to create national guidelines for how culture and heritage bodies talk about British history. The plans were announced after a summit between 25 of the UK’s biggest heritage bodies and charities and Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, yesterday. In a tweet after the event, Dowden

Retail employees at the veterinary charity PDSA have been asked to sign new contracts that allow them to be sacked or have their hours cut at short notice as part of a multimillion-pound restructure.  Correspondence between the charity and staff, seen by Third Sector, shows PDSA was predicting a £30m fall in income in March last

Charities need to consider the appetite among their supporters before restarting fundraising events, the Chartered Institute of Fundraising has cautioned.  Daniel Fluskey, head of policy and external affairs at the CIOF said although the government set out its roadmap yesterday for reopening the economy in England, it was too early for charities to start putting

A charity that provides horseriding opportunities to disabled and disadvantaged people has raised more than £1.2m in just two months to secure its future.  The sums raised by the Park Lane Stables in Teddington, south-west London, amount to almost 10 times its annual income.  The charity, which is part of the Riding for the Disabled

The MS Society has appointed Clare Horwood as executive director of engagement and income generation.  Horwood, who joined the charity today, has spent the past five years working in interim positions, including senior fundraising roles at the mental health charity Mind and Diabetes UK.  She succeeds Emma Whitcombe, who left the MS Society in December

There will be no regulatory action taken against former leaders of the defunct charity Kids Company, Third Sector has been told. An email sent to former Kids Company trustees by a Charity Commission investigator, seen by Third Sector, says that after the conclusion of High Court proceedings the regulator can finish its investigation and remove

The Charity Commission has disqualified a trustee of a now-defunct Birmingham-based charity that claimed it lost all of its financial records in the Grenfell Tower disaster in London.  A report published by the regulator setting out its findings in relation to its inquiry into The Voice Of Truth, which had objects of promoting the benefit

In this month’s bumper special episode, features and analysis writer Rebecca Cooney and editor Emily Burt find out about the Hidden Leaders: Disability Leadership in Civil Society report, commissioned by the charity leaders body Acevo. The report, published earlier this month, explored how Acevo and other senior leaders in the voluntary sector can create a more

Time is running out to submit entries for Third Sector’s Business Charity Awards 2021, which celebrate the significant contribution made by companies to UK charities and social enterprises.  The deadline for entries in this year’s awards is 11:59pm on 23 February.  The independent charitable foundation the Berkeley Foundation won multiple awards at Third Sector’s 2020

More than 50 heritage and culture organisations have received a share of £18m of government funding for regeneration and maintenance projects.   The final grants have been allocated by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the British Film Institute on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. The funding is part of the

The animal welfare charities Blue Cross and the Scottish SPCA have formed a partnership designed to enable them to share best practice and reach more people.  The organisations said they had launched a joint research study with the University of Edinburgh to identify ways to contact people living with pets in hard-to-reach, minority or vulnerable

More than two dozen charity sector leaders from minoritised communities have signed an open letter calling for charities to hold themselves accountable for tackling discrimination by publishing three-year equality, diversity and inclusion targets.  The letter, which has been shared with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and the charity leaders body Acevo, has also been signed

The disability charity Whizz-Kidz has appointed Sarah Pugh as its next chief executive.  Pugh, who has spent almost six years as chief executive of Heart of Kent Hospice, will succeed Ruth Owen, who has taken up the top job at the disability charity Leonard Cheshire after 17 years at Whizz-Kidz.  Whizz-Kidz, which provides equipment and

Charity retailers were not as badly hit as the rest of the high street in the final quarter of last year, new figures indicate.  Statistics from the accountancy firm BDO, produced with the Charity Retail Association, found that like-for-like sales in charity shops were down by 19.2 per cent in October compared with the same

Data-led insight delivers greater understanding of donors to support charity’s growth London, 17 February 2021 – Data and insight company REaD Group has announced that it is working with the Trussell Trust, supporting the good work the charity does through donor and volunteer engagement and fundraising. Trussell Trust logo The Trussell Trust is a charity

The children’s charity Action for Children acquired an after-school club in Scotland last year as part of a £1m deal, new figures show. The charity’s latest accounts, for the year to the end of March 2020, show it bought a business called Out of School Scotland in June 2019. The company provides after-school clubs, breakfast

– This article has been updated; please see final paragraph. The chief executive of St Andrew’s Healthcare received a payment of about £28,000 last year as the charity closed a performance-related bonus scheme, latest figures show. The charity’s accounts for the year to 31 March 2020 show chief executive Katie Fisher was paid between £303,000

Four in 10 charities reported a fall in the amount of time they received from volunteers last year as the coronavirus pandemic hit, new figures show. Latest data from the Covid-19 Voluntary Sector Impact Barometer, which is produced by Nottingham Trent University, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and Sheffield Hallam University, found that of

The chief executive of St Andrew’s Healthcare received a one-off payment of about £60,000 last year as the charity closed a performance-related bonus scheme, latest figures show. The charity’s accounts for the year to 31 March 2020 show chief executive Katie Fisher was paid between £330,000 and £340,000, up from the equivalent of £275,000 in

Charities and heritage groups have been summoned to a controversial meeting with the culture secretary as part of a move to warn them off attempts to “rewrite” British history. Several news outlets reported over the weekend that 25 of the UK’s biggest heritage bodies and charities have been invited to a summit where Oliver Dowden

The High Court is poised to deliver its verdict in the case against Camila Batmanghelidjh and a group of former trustees of the collapsed charity Kids Company. The 10-week trial concluded in December in a case that has reignited conversations in the sector about the role of trustees in a charity’s governance. The Official Receiver

A group of 50 funders have signed a pledge saying they will be “open and trusting” in their grant-making as part of a new campaign aimed at encouraging more flexible funding practices.  The #FlexibleFunders campaign, which has been launched today by the Institute for Voluntary Action Research (Ivar) with London Funders and a small group

The disqualification proceedings brought against Camila Batmanghelidjh and a group of former trustees of the collapsed charity Kids Company have been dismissed. The High Court judgment today rejected the case brought by the Official Receiver against Batmanghelidjh, founder and former chief executive of the charity, and seven other trustees of the charity at the time

This week, features and analysis writer Rebecca Cooney and editor Emily Burt recap the news about the NCVO equality, diversity and inclusion report, which found evidence of “bullying and harassment” on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation and disability happening “with impunity” at all levels of the organisation.  The story sparked a Twitter campaign #NotJustNCVO,

Lawyers have criticised the “flimsy” case brought against the former leaders of Kids Company and said dedicated service by charity trustees “must never again be repaid by such gross injustice”. The High Court rejected the disqualification case brought by the Official Receiver against Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder and former chief executive of Kids Company, and seven