Charity

George Walker has been appointed interim chair of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. Walker, who also chairs the Scottish Housing Regulator, will hold the position until April next year. OSCR then intends to appoint a permanent successor to Lindsay Montgomery, who resigned in March afte two years in post. Montgomery’s predecessor, Reverend Dr

The Charity Commission received so much correspondence regarding its decision to register the LGB Alliance as a charity it is unable to say how much support or opposition the decision has. The regulator announced that the controversial campaign group had been registered as a charity on 21 April.  A Freedom of Information request made by

Genetic Disorders UK (GDUK) has been renamed Gene People following a rebrand.  The charity umbrella body, which supports people affected by genetic conditions, and the charities and patient groups that support them, was founded in 2012.  The rebrand to Gene People follows a major review of the organisation’s purpose by its trustees.   Gene People will

A crowdfunder set up to appeal the charity watchdog’s decision to register a controversial campaign group as a charity has raised tens of thousands of pounds in a matter of hours. Several LGBT charities announced yesterday that they had joined forces to appeal the Charity Commission’s decision to award charity status to the LGB Alliance.

The boss of an anti-modern slavery charity has left the organisation after serious complaints about his behaviour were upheld following an independent investigation. Hope for Justice said in a statement that the charity’s co-founder Tim Nelson was appointed interim chief executive at the end of last month, following the departure of Ben Cooley. The charity

Household giving could provide charities with a £1.2bn income boost as the sector seeks to recover from the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, new research has found.   A report from the charity think tank Pro Bono Economics has identified a potential “windfall” for the sector, as constraints on spending opportunities have resulted in an

The Official Receiver’s case against the defunct charity Kids Company has resulted in a legal bill of at least £8m, The Guardian has reported. Disqualification proceedings brought by the OR against the charity’s former chief executive, Camila Batmanghelidjh, and seven former trustees were dismissed by the High Court in February. The conclusion of the 10-week High

Save the Children is having a “very live” conversation about the problematic implications of its name, its executive director of fundraising and marketing has said.  Speaking during a session at Third Sector’s Fundraising Conference last week about the end of the ‘saviour’ narrative within charity, Gemma Sherrington told delegates that it was not a conversation the

An animal welfare organisation that was removed from the charity register eight years ago has been reinstated after a failed attempt to take over land it owned. The Kent-based The National Equine Training Trust was removed from the charity register in 2013 after the Charity Commission concluded it was inactive. The regulator found trustees had

A charity providing horse riding opportunities for disabled and disadvantaged people is facing eviction just weeks after raising more than £1.3m to stay in its current location. Park Lane Stables in Teddington, Richmond upon Thames, has been served a notice of eviction from its existing site for the end of this month, when its lease expires.

Richard Leaman is to step down as chief executive of the sail training charity Tall Ships Youth Trust after four years in the role.  Leaman, who joined the charity after six years in the top job at Guide Dogs, said the time was right for him to move on.  Tall Ships Youth Trust said that

The retailer Poundland has launched a charitable foundation today with a pledge to give £825,000 to communities over the next 12 months. The Poundland Foundation will start by providing sports kits for children through cash grants for community groups. Through the foundation, Poundland will also continue to support its existing charity partnerships with Make-A-Wish UK,

Income at Save the Children UK dropped by £18m last year, latest figures show. The charity’s annual report, published today, says that its income was £288.7m in 2020, down from £307.4m in the previous year.  Save the Children said the main reasons for the fall were shop closures and the cancellation of fundraising events as a result

My dear friend and colleague Jane Hatfield died of ovarian cancer on 22 May. She was a leading light in HIV, sexual and reproductive rights, leading the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health until just weeks before her death. Her commitment to social justice was reflected in a life’s work in the voluntary sector. Jane

A group of artists are calling for a Chinese art gallery in Manchester to be defunded because of a “current and historic culture of institutional racism”. Seven artists of Chinese heritage were appointed in September by the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art as part of a “revisioning project” that would address equality and inclusion in

The Covid-19 pandemic has “democratised the fundraising space”, making it easier for small charity brands to attract donations, the Third Sector Fundraising Conference has heard.  Speaking as part of an online session about the lessons of the past year, Eoghan Beecher, country manager for the UK and Ireland at the fundraising software company iRaiser, said

The Scout Association has launched a campaign to recruit more than 5,000 volunteers after numbers fell by 15,000 over the past year. The charity said its number of adult volunteers dropped from almost 156,000 in 2020 to just under 141,000 this year.  The membership has also fallen by more than 117,000 – almost a quarter

The proportion of people who said they made a donation to charity in the past three months has remained at an “unprecedented” low, new research shows. Figures from the consultancy nfpSynergy last year showed that 54 per cent of the 1,000 GB adults it surveyed in August said they had made a charitable donation in

The government’s decision to delay funding from its UK Aid Match scheme until next year is a “betrayal”, according to one charity. In November, the government encouraged charities working in developing countries to apply to take part in its UK Aid Match scheme, a £2m initiative that would match-fund public donations. Run by the Foreign,

Aid recipients do not need more aid, they need a chance to compete in an international system whose post-colonial trading relationships are “unfair by design”, MPs have heard. These relationships make the aid sector complicit in the extension of a colonial system that treats countries and local organisations as “second-class citizens”, according to one expert

Up to 170 jobs are at risk at the debt advice charity StepChange because of reduced demand for its services. The charity has slightly more than 1,500 staff, according to its latest accounts, in offices around the UK. Unite the union said in a statement that the StepChange offices in Leeds and Newcastle upon Tyne would

The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a rise in digital volunteering, according to new research.  It comes in the latest data from the seventh monthly Covid-19 Voluntary Sector Impact Barometer, which asked 579 organisations across the UK questions about the impact of the pandemic on volunteering within their organisations. Led by the National Council for Voluntary

The government has declined to release a list of all the organisations that are registered as charities for tax purposes.  A request made by Third Sector using the Freedom of Information Act asked HM Revenue & Customs for a copy of the data it holds on all the charities in its database recognised for tax purposes.

MPs on the House of Commons International Development Committee are to scrutinise racism in the foreign aid sector.  The committee said it would be taking evidence on the subject as part of its wider inquiry into the philosophy and culture of aid. It will hear from experts on the subject via a virtual evidence session

The government has been accused of trying to avoid public scrutiny after it refused to publish the legal advice it received regarding its cuts to overseas development aid. Preet Kaur Gill, the shadow international development minister and MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, criticised the government after it rejected a request by Third Sector under the Freedom

The National Trust has received its biggest donation to date in the form of a £4m gift from HSBC UK. The bank’s multimillion-pound gift will enable the charity to plant two million trees as part of a plan to tackle climate change, attract more wildlife and protect landscapes prone to flooding. The charity said the

The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into grant-making charity The Knightland Foundation because of concerns about potential conflicts of interest. The commission said yesterday it had been looking into the London-based charity since 2016 after a proactive review of its accounts revealed a number of concerns, including insufficiently documented loan agreements and transactions

The footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaigning to raise money for the fight against food poverty has resulted in him topping The Sunday Times Giving List for the first time. The Manchester United striker also becomes the youngest person to top the list, published for the 20th time today. The annual measure of philanthropy among the super-rich

Charities working with disadvantaged women and girls can apply for up to £350,000 in grant funding from the government after it made £11.25m available from the final funding round of its tampon tax scheme.  The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport said the Tampon Tax Fund, which has been redistributing VAT collected on sanitary

Marcus Missen, director of fundraising and communications at WaterAid, has been appointed executive director of fundraising, marketing and communications at the disability charity Leonard Cheshire.  He succeeds Kate Burt, who left in April last year after three years in post and subsequently became chief executive of the Haemophilia Society.  Leslie Davey has been covering the