Charity

Giving to universities in the UK and Ireland reached an all-time high in 2022/23, latest figures show.  A report from the membership body the Council for Advancement and Support of Education found that giving to 92 higher education institutions reached a total of almost £1.4bn in the year to the end of July.  Case said

An animal rescue charity is at risk of closure and 50 employees could lose their jobs due to an “unprecedented and severe financial downturn”. Ferne Animal Sanctuary, which is based in Chard, Somerset, provides care and shelter for stray, neglected and unwanted animals. The charity, which has about 120 volunteers and is home to more

Horniman Museum and Gardens has appointed Gordon Seabright as its next chief executive. Seabright, who has spent the past four years as chief executive of the Creative Land Trust, succeeds Nick Merriman, who left the Horniman in October to become chief executive of English Heritage. Victoria Pinnington, the Horniman’s director of communications and income generation,

A food bank charity that was at risk of closure after being suddenly evicted has found new premises after an “incredible” community fundraising effort. Smile London and Essex, which supports disadvantaged families in crisis by providing clothing and food bank services, said it had secured a new hub three times larger than its former premises

The voluntary sector’s investment in legacy fundraising increased by 31 per cent in just a year, data from Legacy Futures consultancy has revealed. The group’s biannual benchmarking programme, Legacy Marketing Benchmarks, collected data for the financial year ending March 2023 from a consortium of 30 charities of different sizes and sectors. It found that in

The British Youth Council’s 17 employees have been made redundant as the charity enters liquidation.  BYC, a 75-year-old youth voice charity, which announced plans to close in March, has appointed liquidators and made its team of 17 staff members redundant. The charity appointed James Sleight and Peter Hart of PKF Littlejohn Advisory as its joint

Kris Hallenga, founder of the breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel!, has died aged 38. Hallenga founded CoppaFeel! after being diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in 2009 at the age of 23. She had been turned away from her GP for more than a year and by the time she was diagnosed, it was terminal. Hallenga

More than 50 charities and community organisations in Northern Ireland have called for more financial support from the government after a £3.6m scheme had its funding halved. The group wrote an open letter headed by Children in Northern Ireland, a charity and umbrella body for the children’s sector, to health minister Robin Swann last week

Participation in workplace volunteering schemes could reduce an employee’s sickness absences by an average of 0.9 days a year, a report from Pro Bono Economics has found.  This is the equivalent to a 1 per cent reduction in the UK’s total sickness absence days if rolled out to all staff currently without access, the think

Dependence on state funding and submission to chilling narratives from government, media and the regulator has caused charities to lose their radical identities, the outgoing chief executive of the Lloyds Bank Foundation for England and Wales said yesterday.  Delivering a lecture called ‘Reflections forward: Perspectives on leadership in a changing context’ at Bayes Business School,

MPs have called for more support to help people volunteer, including a new fund to help pay travel expenses. During a debate on volunteering in parliament yesterday, MPs paid tribute to the work of volunteers and the crucial role they play in supporting charities. But they also put forward ideas for how people could be

A charity that works to prevent corporate abuse of human rights and the environment has appointed a new chief executive.  Eleanor Rosenbach will take up the role at the Corporate Justice Coalition on Tuesday (7 May) after three years as communications and advocacy manager at the Right to Education Initiative.  She succeed Nick Dearn, who

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Charities and Volunteering has been disbanded until after the next general election.  The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which provides the secretariat for the group, said it wanted to make sure it would be compliant with new rules around APPGs, which are informal cross-party groups of parliamentarians from both houses

The Royal Opera House is changing its name to the Royal Ballet and Opera to reflect its “two world-class companies”. The arts charity is home to The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet and said its current name described the place in which it worked, not what it was. It said: “The whole is always

Bowel Research UK has welcomed a new chief executive after its leader for the past three years announced plans to retire.  Lindsay Easton, who was previously chief executive of Brain Research UK, took up the chief executive post at the medical research charity yesterday (1 May). She succeeds Lynn Dunne, who has held the chief

The Charity Commission has frozen the bank accounts of a relief charity after uncovering “substantial” unexplained payments to trustees and companies they are directors of.  The regulator said today it had opened a statutory inquiry into the We Care Foundation, which was set up to provide financial and other support to victims of war or

Charities risk a “campaign drain” because three-quarters of campaigners are unsure whether they have the energy to continue in the face of rising pressure from government, the media and even their own organisations, new research finds.  In the annual campaigner survey, conducted by the Sheila McKechnie Foundation and published today, 75 per cent of those

The international charity Stir Education has appointed two interim leaders after chief executive Girish Menon announced plans to step down. Menon, who took up the role in January 2021 after five years leading ActionAid UK, is leaving in June to take a short break from the sector. The charity has appointed Jenny Willmott, senior director

Central YMCA has been fined £7,500 for sending emails about an HIV support programme to more than 260 addresses using a field that could be seen by all recipients.  The Information Commissioner’s Office said today the charity, which provides education, health and wellbeing and runs the largest gym in central London, had sent messages to

A charity that runs a preschool for disabled children in Surrey has announced the school will close because of a lack of funding, rising costs and “difficulty in recruiting qualified staff”.  Disability Challengers provides play and leisure opportunities for disabled and young people aged between two and 18. The charity runs a preschool at its

A crossbench committee of peers has urged the Royal Albert Hall to address the “impasse” with the Charity Commission over its governance arrangements. A special report from the House of Lords Select Committee on the Royal Albert Hall Bill, published last week, says it wants to make the wider house and the government aware of

The Charity Commission has concluded inquiries into two charities where trustees “were responsible for mismanagement” by not submitting annual reports on time. The Islamic Education Centre and Mosque, based in Sunderland, and the Children Care Centre in London were subject to statutory inquiries in February and June 2022 respectively. The IECM submitted its accounts late

Penny Wilson has announced she is stepping down as chief executive of Getting on Board. The charity, which supports people from underrepresented backgrounds to become trustees, initially appointed Wilson as its operations director in 2017. She was promoted to co-chief executive in 2017 and became the sole chief the following year. Wilson will leave the

The Charity Commission has launched a compliance case into allegations a soup kitchen charity supported the political candidate who founded it. Amazing Graze, a soup kitchen in Blackpool that supports homeless people in the area by providing hot meals and shelter, was founded by Mark Butcher, the Reform UK candidate in the Blackpool South by-election

A record more than 38,000 wills included gifts to charity last year, pushing the total donated to a new annual high.  The legacy notification company Smee & Ford said there were 38,178 charitable estates recorded in Engand and Wales in 2023, the highest number since it started tracking sector data in 2012.  The company said

Two women have been jailed for defrauding and laundering more than £634,000 from estates of the deceased, including money intended for charities. Laurna Porter, 69, and Julie Atkins, 68, both of Tamworth, were sentenced at Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday to four years and 30 months in prison respectively.  Porter admitted fraud by abuse of position

The Royal Albert Hall has withdrawn a controversial proposal to add seats to some of its most lucrative boxes after opposition from peers.  The hall, which was established by royal charter and therefore needs parliament to approve changes to its constitution, wanted permission to add an extra two seats into each of its “grand tier”

The sector leader Simon Blake has been awarded £90,000 in damages after the actor-turned-politician Laurence Fox called him a paedophile on social media.  Simon Blake, chief executive of Mental Health First Aid England, filed a defamation lawsuit in 2021 with the RuPaul’s Drag Race star Crystal after they were subjected to the same slur by

The palliative care charity Sue Ryder has appointed James Sanderson, a current national director for NHS England, as its new chief executive. Sanderson, who has been the national director of community health services, personalised care and palliative and end-of-life care for NHS England since 2015, will take up the reins at the charity in August. 

Charity leaders are facing a sense that they are “on trial just for doing their job”, the chief executive of the Charity Commission has warned.  Speaking at an event for charity trustees in London today, Helen Stephenson said there was a risk that charity leaders are facing “disproportionately intense, unpleasant, and sometimes unfair personal scrutiny