Charity

The defunct charity Kids Company was a “victim of its own success”, the High Court heard today. The former BBC executive Alan Yentob, who chaired Kids Company for 18 years until its collapse in 2015, became visibly upset during the hearing as he made an impassioned defence of the charity and its founder and former

The Third Sector Podcast has gone weekly, and in its first episode, editor Emily Burt and features and analysis writer Rebecca Cooney ask: “What gives with Giving Tuesday?” Giving Tuesday is celebrated five days after the US festival of Thanksgiving and was launched on the other side of the Atlantic in 2012 as a reaction

The disability charity Deafblind UK has sold its former headquarters for £2.5m and plans to reinvest the resulting funds in its services.  The offices in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, also acted as a conferencing centre that provided about £100,000 a year to the charity, but had been dormant during the pandemic.  The building was sold last month

The defunct charity Kids Company had nothing to hide from the government, its former chair has told the High Court.  The TV presenter and former BBC executive Alan Yentob, in a dark suit jacket and light blue-and-white striped shirt, often looked exasperated as Lesley Anderson QC, on behalf of the Official Receiver, questioned him yesterday

The number of charitable gifts in wills could be as much as 50 per cent higher next year than in 2020 because of a record-breaking death rate and a backlog of existing bequests, experts have predicted. A new paper from the legacy consortium Legacy Foresight said the total number of deaths in the UK could

A new £1m fund being delivered by the learning disability charity Mencap will help support 60 partner organisations to develop digital strategies and move their services online. The money has been donated by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and the Pears Foundation to help the charity and its network of partners improve access

The culture secretary has promised to “unleash” the potential of civil society as he defended his government’s attitude to the sector. Oliver Dowden was speaking at the virtual launch of the Law Family Commission on Civil Society, hosted by the research charity Pro Bono Economics. The commission is a two-year initiative that aims to examine

The value of charitable work in the UK is undervalued by about £160bn, according to a new report. The paper, called Civil Action, was published today by the research charity Pro Bono Economics, to mark the start of its Law Family Commission on Civil Society. The commission is a two-year initiative that aims to examine

Almost three-quarters of people in Britain say they will make a charitable donation this Christmas, according to new research.  Survey data from almost 140,000 people collated by the insurance company Ecclesiastical indicates that 72 per cent of those polled said they would make a gift to charity over the festive period.  It showed that 84

Reduced capacity and tighter restrictions in the financial industry has created a “banking blackout” that has left many small charities locked out of their accounts or unable to open a new one, organisations have told Third Sector.  Concerns have been raised by charitable groups and membership bodies that smaller organisations that might have been inactive

Becky Hewitt is to step down as chief executive of the disfigurement charity Changing Faces to allow someone with more specialist health experience to take over.  Hewitt, who has been in the role since September 2017, said she had loved her time at the charity but the coronavirus pandemic had caused the organisation to think

The RSPCA has promoted John Kerslake to be its chief operating officer and deputy chief executive.  Kerslake, who joined the animal charity in January as director of field operations, took up the new positions earlier this month.  Before joining the RSPCA, Kerslake was chief operations officer at the National Citizen Service.  Prior to that, he worked in

The latest episode of the Third Sector Podcast looks at job hunting in the charity sector. In August, Pro Bono Economics’ Charity Sector Tracker found that almost 60,000 voluntary sector jobs could be lost by the end of the year, as a result of the coronavirus crisis.  Each week, new charities are announcing redundancies and

The animal charities RSPCA and Blue Cross are planning to work together more closely in a range of areas to save money.  The organisations said key areas being explored included purchasing and supplies, where they believed economies of scale savings could be found, and in the transport of animals and behaviour services.  The charities said

Twelve charities will receive a share of £15m in funding to help ensure support for the most vulnerable women and girls can continue during the coronavirus pandemic, the government has said.  The money is being distributed from the latest round of the Tampon Tax Fund, which uses money generated from the VAT on sanitary products.

Liam O’Toole, chief executive of Versus Arthritis, will retire next year after more than a decade in the role. The charity said the move was unrelated to recent issues at the organisation, which included it filing a serious incident report with the Charity Commission after multiple employee accounts of systemic racism, racially motivated microaggressions and

“Short-sighted” cuts to the international aid budget will increase the pressure on philanthropic foundations, an opposition MP has warned.   Rushanara Ali, the Labour MP for Bethnal Green and Bow and a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Philanthropy and Social Investment, was speaking as part of the Association of Charitable Foundation’s annual conference earlier

The government has pledged that the long-awaited UK Shared Prosperity Fund will be worth an average of about £1.5bn a year – but might not be available until 2022.  Papers released as part of the Spending Review yesterday said that the UKSPF, which will replace EU funding for communities and charities, will at least match

Lockdown restrictions and financial pressures during the pandemic have left many charitable causes in crisis and created additional hardship for service users as industry professionals strive to meet increasing demands for support. We would like to hear from our readers about whether individuals working in the sector could be considered more vulnerable than most to

The Kids Company founder Camila Batmanghelidjh “kicked back” against trustee attempts to impose financial controls in the months leading up to the charity’s collapse, the High Court heard yesterday.  Richard Handover, a former Kids Company trustee and ex-WHSmith chief executive, was being questioned by Lesley Anderson, on behalf of the Official Receiver, about the period

Funds raised for good causes through the National Lottery dropped slightly in the first half of its financial year as the coronavirus pandemic hit sales before recovering.  The National Lottery operator, Camelot, said today that £863.7m excluding investment returns had been raised for good causes between 1 April and 26 September, a fall of £13.1m

Three-quarters of charities expect demand for their services to rise over the next year while more than 80 per cent expect income to fall, new figures indicate.  Latest data from the research charity Pro Bono Economics’ monthly Covid-19 charity tracker shows that 36 per cent of charity respondents said they expected demand for their services

The NSPCC has appointed the former acting chief executive of the youth charity Impetus as its director of strategy and knowledge.  Maria Neophytou, who has been director of public affairs at Impetus for the past four years, was interim head of the charity from July to October.  The NSPCC said Neophytou had 20 years’ experience

Community groups should be given greater power over local assets and a £2bn Community Wealth Fund should be set up to support local devolution, according to a new report.  Renewing Neighbourhood Democracy, published by the think tank Localis, sets out measures to give local communities the powers they need to improve their areas.  The paper calls

Two directors at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations are set to leave as the umbrella body restructures amid the coronavirus pandemic.  The NCVO said Susan Cordingley, interim deputy chief executive and responsible for finance and services, and Megan Griffith Gray, interim director of strategy and transformation, who has been with the charity for 17

The Charity Commission upheld less than five per cent of all complaints made against it over the past three years, new figures show. A response by the regulator to a request made under Freedom of Information legislation, which has been shared with Third Sector, revealed that 20 of 431 stage one and stage two complaints

The National Emergencies Trust has appointed Mhairi Sharp as chief executive. Sharp, who was chief operating officer at the charity, has been interim CEO since the departure of John Herriman in September. The charity said Sharp led the formation of the NET, which was launched last year to respond to domestic disasters. Before joining the

A former Charity Commission chair has accused the Church of England of misinterpreting charity law and freezing out community groups from purchasing its redundant assets.  Geraldine Peacock, who became the first chair of the commission in 2004, is among those claiming that the church is “riding roughshod over community interests” by insisting that properties must

The youth homelessness charity Centrepoint has appointed Julie Milnes as director of fundraising.  Milnes spent almost eight years at the British Red Cross, latterly as director of high value giving and events.  After leaving the BRC at the start of the year she has held interim senior fundraising roles at the Teenage Cancer Trust and the

Trustees at a Buddhist charity failed to properly investigate allegations of sexual and physical abuse against its spiritual leader, the Charity Commission has concluded.  An inquiry report by the regulator, published today, criticised the London-based charity Rigpa Fellowship, which was set up to advance the Buddhist religion, for leaving students at risk of harm. The