Charity

Press Release Private wealth firm successfully represents one of the former trustees LONDON — Maurice Turnor Gardner LLP (MTG), a boutique private wealth law firm, today welcomed Mrs Justice Falk’s judgment handed down for the Kids Company 10 week trial in favour of the defendants; seven of the former charity trustees and CEO Camila Batmanghelidjh.

Exoneration will banish the false myths surrounding Kids Company, the charity’s founder has said. The High Court today dismissed the case brought by the Official Receiver against Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder and former chief executive of the charity, and seven other trustees at the time it closed abruptly in 2015.  The OR had been attempting to secure

A long-standing trustee and former president of the British Psychological Society has resigned citing concerns about governance, spending and transparency. The BPS is the charity that acts as the representative body for psychology and psychologists in the UK. It is responsible for the promotion of excellence and ethical practice in the science, education, and application

Clic Sargent, the Teenage Cancer Trust and the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust have announced a formal partnership to help the charities offer more support to young people with cancer. The collaboration will involve the sharing of resources and information, creating clear pathways to refer young people to each other’s services, and joint campaigning. While the

Comic Relief recorded a deficit of about £27m last year as it accelerated its grant-giving during the pandemic.  The grant-maker’s latest accounts, for the year to the end of July 2020, show total income at the poverty relief charity fell by £8m compared with the previous year, to £78m. This was largely because 2020 featured its

Grants totalling hundreds of millions of pounds to support heritage projects are being made available to UK good causes.  The National Lottery Heritage Fund has begun accepting applications to its flagship annual funding programme, which offers grants of up to £5m to support heritage schemes.  The programme, which runs until April 2022, typically hands out

A project to reclaim potentially millions of pounds in charitable funding from inactive trusts has been launched by the regulator in Scotland. The Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and Foundation Scotland said the initiative could unlock additional funding for charities and other community and voluntary groups from so-called “sleepy trusts” . The Revitalising Trusts

The chief executive of a global NGO who agreed to make payments to an armed group has left the organisation with immediate effect, it is understood.  Third Sector revealed last week that Nancy Wilson, the US-based head of Relief International, had been put on administrative leave after it emerged she had agreed to the use

A surge in memberships and donations resulted in total income at the conservation charity WWF-UK increasing by more than £14m last year, new figures show. Total income rose to £80.8m in the year to 30 June 2020, according to the charity’s latest accounts. This was driven mostly by income from individuals, which increased by more

Charity trading subsidiaries in Scotland might be able to claim charitable status after the conclusion of a four-year legal battle involving a heritage charity.  The New Lanark Trust is responsible for the former 18th century village in South Lanarkshire built around a cotton spinning mill, which is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Following a series of

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations will stop running its Funding Central online fund-finding service and wind down its “trusted charity” quality standard as part of its new strategy.  The umbrella body said today that it had drawn up its strategic priorities through a consultation involving more than 900 stakeholders and taking into consideration the

More than four out of 10 charities expect to have difficulty meeting demand for their services over the coming months, according to new research.  A survey conducted among almost 250 charities last month found that 42 per cent said they either expected demand for their services to rise and they would not have the resources

The overwhelming majority of charities that have been asked to pay a voluntary fundraising levy to cover the costs of the Fundraising Regulator are doing so, the organisation has reported. In its latest annual report and accounts, covering the year to the end of August 2020, the regulator said 97 per cent of the charities

Campaigners have accused the Royal Voluntary Service of “running down the clock” on their attempts to save a community centre from closure. Residents and local groups in Pickering, North Yorkshire, have been trying to save the Hungate Centre since it was put up for sale by RVS in March last year. The £150,000 building was

Staff members from all marginalised groups experienced “overt oppression” across all levels of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, according to an excoriating independent report into the umbrella body’s culture.  The equality, diversity and inclusion report, seen by Third Sector, was compiled last year by external consultants. It found evidence of “bullying and harassment” on

This week, Rebecca and Emily explore a perennial debate in the charity sector – should trustees get remuneration for their work? Charity people! The next episode of the @ThirdSector podcast (recorded Weds am) will be looking at the perennial issue of trustee payment. So here’s a quick poll: Should charity trustees be paid? (*Please* feel free

Charities can “shake things up”, but they must not “go out of their way to divide people”, according to the outgoing chair of the Charity Commission.  Speaking at a virtual event held by the think tank The Social Market Foundation earlier today, Baroness Stowell used what was likely to be one of her last speeches

Charities are being encouraged to make use of the government’s revised youth job creation scheme after it was made simpler for employers to get involved. The Kickstart scheme provides funding for six-month job placements for 16- to 24-year-olds who are at risk of long-term unemployment. It has created more than 120,000 roles across all industries

A charity has reported itself to the regulator after Third Sector made it aware that a convicted sex offender was part of its advisory panel. Karl Sabbagh, an author and filmmaker, joined the British False Memory Society‘s scientific and professional advisory board in June 1994, after expressing an interest in false memory-type allegations, according to

Charities must avoid putting in overly-low bids to win public service contracts and stop acting as competitors in an attempt to maximise their market share, a major new piece of research urges.  Rebalancing the Relationship, published today by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, the charity leaders body Acevo and the Lloyds Bank Foundation for

The chief executive of a major global aid charity is on administrative leave after she approved the use of an intermediary to make monthly payments to an armed opposition group in a conflict zone. Third Sector has learned that Nancy Wilson, who has been the US-based head of Relief International since 2014, went on administrative

A social action charity based in east London has completed a multimillion-pound merger with the social business Catch22. Community Links, which has a total income of about £3m a year and a team of more than 100 staff and volunteers, provides a range of services in youth, employment, health, advice and policy. It has been

The former Conservative Party comms director Carrie Symonds has become head of communications at a the wildlife charity The Aspinall Foundation. The charity aims to protect rare and endangered species and preserve the habitats they live in. Symonds joins the charity from marine conservation charity Oceana, where she specialised in combating plastics pollution. She will

Charities lack humility and need to face up to difficult decisions in order to truly achieve their aims, according to the head of media and PR at Christian Aid. Speaking at the creative agency Good’s virtual event “Change Conversations: 2021 in Focus” last week, Chine McDonald called for charities to be brave if they wanted

There is no evidence to suggest that antisemitic comments made by senior leaders at Islamic Relief Worldwide had any link to its charitable work, a review by the former attorney general, Dominic Grieve, has concluded. Grieve was asked to chair an independent commission in August after claims emerged the previous month that two senior figures

The Charity Commission appears to have shelved plans to publish a long-awaited report into executive pay in the voluntary sector, it has emerged.  In December 2019, the regulator announced plans for a study into top-level pay after it criticised the board of Marie Stopes International for failing to properly record discussions that led to the

Charities should be required to report on the impact they have made and should be able to pay their trustees without seeking the permission of the Charity Commission, according to the think tank NPC.  In a letter to Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, Dan Corry, chief executive of NPC, says the upcoming appointment of a

Cancer Research UK has appointed a new executive director to lead on its policy development, communications and clinical engagement. Ian Walker will join the charity’s executive board in March as director of policy, information and communications. He will succeed Sarah Woolnough, who left the charity in October last year after 15 years. Walker has also

This year’s RideLondon cycling event, which has raised tens of millions of pounds for charities in previous years, has been cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic, organisers have said.  The annual cycling event, which involves tens of thousands of people riding a variety of courses over the same weekend, has raised more than £80m for

In this month’s bumper episode of the Third Sector Podcast, editor Emily Burt and features and analysis writer Rebecca Cooney find out what the National Council for Voluntary Organisations‘s Respond, Recover and Reset project can tell us about the impact of lockdown on charities. The Respond, Recover, Reset project, run by the NCVO with Nottingham