Charity

The hearing loss charity RNID has promoted Paul Hayward to director of fundraising.  Hayward has spent the past two years as head of public fundraising at the charity. Before joining the RNID – or Action on Hearing Loss as it was at the time, before reverting to its former name – Hayward was head of individual giving

Cancer Research UK has made two senior appointments from the private sector as part of a wider shake-up that is halving the size of its top management team. The cancer charity said it had appointed Angela Morrison as chief operating officer and Richard Newsome as chief technology officer as part of a restructure that will

Tax relief for social enterprises across the UK will be extended until April 2023, the government announced today in the Spring Budget. Chancellor Rishi Sunak said he would continue to support social enterprises that were seeking investment growth by extending the tax break, which was due to end next month, for an additional two years.

The Charity Commission has spent more than £200,000 defending itself from equal pay or race discrimination claims over slightly more than the past five years. A request made by Third Sector under the Freedom of Information Act revealed the regulator spent about £202,000 successfully defending such claims since 2016, including in the first few weeks

A disability sports charity that had the five-time gold medal-winning Olympian Sir Steve Redgrave as a patron has closed, citing difficulties including an investigation by the regulator. SportsAble, based in Maidenhead, Berkshire, announced its decision to close after 46 years in a statement on its website earlier this week. According to its latest accounts, for

The proportion of people who list children’s charities among their favourite causes has plummeted over the past decade, new figures show. The research consultancy nfpSynergy has been regularly polling members of the public on their favourite cause areas, with cancer, animals, and children and young people usually in the top three. But it said today

The Charity Commission has appointed an interim manager to a religious charity that was accused of promoting fake coronavirus protection kits.  The regulator opened a compliance case in April into The Kingdom Church GB, which runs a church in south London, after the National Secular Society said the charity had been advertising false coronavirus cleansing

This week, features and analysis writer Rebecca Cooney and editor Emily Burt discuss what the government’s road map for lifting coronavirus restrictions could mean for in-person fundraising events this year.  They look at the latest advice from the Chartered Institute of Fundraising and the Fundraising Regulator to find out what charities will need to consider when

The Spring Budget was a “huge disappointment to thousands of charities”, the shadow charities minister has declared.  Yesterday’s set-piece has been roundly criticised by charity leaders for containing little of value to voluntary sector organisations.  Comments have included claims that the government was “taking the sector for granted” and accusing senior ministers of being like

Charities in England and Wales can apply for unrestricted grants of £50,000 from the Lloyds Bank Foundation. The foundation said it would award a total of £9.5m this year to 190 small and local charities with annual incomes of between £25,000 and £1m. The fund, which opens today, is aimed at charities working to tackle

Community groups will be able to bid for up to £250,000 of government funding to take over the running of local assets as part of a new £150m initiative. Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the Community Ownership Fund as part of his Spring Budget today. The £150m fund will open for applications in the summer, and

The Charity Commission has appointed an interim manager to an educational charity “to assess its future viability”, the regulator has announced.  In November, the commission said it had opened a second statutory inquiry in less than five years into the Rabia Educational Trust, which operates the Rabia Girls and Boys School in Luton, Bedfordshire, The inquiry

The Christian development charity Tearfund has reported a record rise in income thanks to an increase in individual donations, including a multimillion-pound gift.  The charity’s accounts for the year to 31 March 2020, filed with Companies House last week, show income rose 11 per cent on the previous year to £85.1m. Its income for 2018/19 was £76.3m.

Membership bodies are warning that charity shops are still being denied access to millions of pounds in government lockdown grants because confusion about European Union state aid rules meant they were being wrongly applied. The Charity Tax Group and the Charity Retail Association said in a statement that the government was continuing to apply rules

The government has opened an investigation into allegations of bullying and the use of inappropriate language made against the former chief executive of the National Lottery Community Fund. The Times newspaper today alleges that a number of senior staff members at the NLCF had spoken out internally regarding the behaviour and language used by ex-chief executive

Charities could be set for a bumper windfall from the London Marathon after organisers confirmed that 100,000 people will take part in this year’s delayed event.  London Marathon Events revealed in January that it planned to include a record number of runners in this year’s race, with 50,000 people running the famous course between Blackheath

Entries for the Third Sector Awards, which celebrate the work of charities and the difference they make to society, have opened for 2021.  After an unprecedented year for the voluntary and not-for-profit sector, the awards will recognise the work of the sector throughout the Covid-19 pandemic to support service users, raise awareness of crucial issues

A membership body has criticised a Scottish council’s decision to bring a leisure charity back under full control. Community Leisure UK said it was surprised and disappointed with the decision made by Falkirk Council last month to take the Falkirk Community Trust back in-house. Falkirk Community Trust has been providing cultural, recreational, sports and library

This week, features and analysis writer Rebecca Cooney and editor Emily Burt discuss the #RightNow campaign and what the Chancellor could do to support charities in next week’s Spring Budget. They look at options including the proposed Gift Aid emergency relief package, extending the furlough scheme and offering extra support to local authorities. And they share their coronavirus care

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