Charity

The Cheshire Centre for Independent Living has changed its name to Disability Positive.  The charity, which supports more than 10,000 people with disabilities and long-term health conditions in Cheshire and north-west England, said the new name would help it to “reconnect with its values and shine a positive light on disability”.  It began the process

The market research company Ipsos MORI is to lead an evaluation of £200m of emergency support to help charities through the coronavirus pandemic.  The exercise will involve surveys of grant holders that have received funds from the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, which was opened to applications on 22 May by the National Lottery Community Fund. 

The third sector think tank Pro Bono Economics is launching a commission to assess civic society’s role in Britain’s recovery from the coronavirus. The Law Family Commission on Civil Society was announced over the weekend by Lord Gus O’Donnell, chair of Pro Bono Economics and a former head of the UK Civil Service, and Andy Haldane,

The British Dyslexia Association has welcomed Nick Posford as its new chief executive.  Posford joins from the same role at CICRA, a charity for children with inflammatory bowel disease, where he has been since 2017.  At CICRA he worked to develop a family support service, create a programme aimed at increasing confidence in children with bowel

The employability charity Shaw Trust has announced plans to recruit more than 600 employees to meet growing demand for its services.  The charity, which specialises in helping young people and adults into work, currently has 2,500 staff members and 1,000 volunteers. It said it was planning to grow these numbers by 25 per cent over

The Charity Commission has opened a statutory inquiry into a charity that promoted fake coronavirus protection kits.  In April, the regulator said it had opened a compliance case 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 products

Four charities are suing a disgraced former solicitor, arguing that they lost out on a legacy gift from a will of which she was the co-executor.  Linda Mary Box was jailed for seven years in 2017 after stealing money from the client account of the firm where she worked, with a further eight years to

Charities are being invited to apply for grants from the Morrisons Foundation as the charity marks its fifth anniversary.  The charity, which is funded by the Morrisons supermarket chain, said it had given out £30m in grants to more than 2,500 GB charities since its launch in 2015.  The grant-maker said it was encouraging local

Alzheimer’s Research UK has appointed the former executive director of research and external affairs at the MS Society as its new director of research. Dr Susan Kohlhaas will be responsible for developing the charity’s research strategy to help bring about a life-changing dementia treatment in the next five years. Kohlhaas began her career at the MS Society

A charity that sent aid to northern Syria has been removed from the register after it was unable to account for almost £3m of goods sent in a year.  The Charity Commission said in a report about two inquiries into Aid Convoy that two of the charity’s former trustees had been banned from charity trusteeship

More than seven million people expect to seek charity support in the next year, with the bulk of them doing so for the first time, research indicates.  A survey commissioned by the National Emergencies Trust shows that one in eight respondents thought they would need charity help in the next year.  The poll – of

A record £702m was paid out to charities through the Charities Aid Foundation last year, the organisation’s annual report shows.  Despite concerns about Brexit, a general election and the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, the amount paid out to charities in the UK and 110 other countries around the world rose by £56m in the year

The latest episode of the Third Sector Podcast looks at how charities have responded to the Black Lives Matter movement, after the killing of George Floyd by US police in May sparked worldwide protests against racism. Third Sector’s editor, Emily Burt spoke to Kunle Olulode, chief executive of Voice 4 Change England and Saba Shafi,

Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, is to step down after a decade in the role.  The charity said today that Guy would leave in October to become the Independent Assessor for the Financial Ombudsman Service.  Citizens Advice said Guy, who joined the charity from Victim Support in July 2010, had led it through

A former solicitor has admitted stealing about £350,000 from two charities after he fell foul of a scam.  Hugh Lansdell, 71 and from Norwich, last week pleaded guilty at Norwich Magistrates’ Court to one count of fraud by abuse of position between August 2015 and July 2017.  In November 2016, Lansdell, who was struck off

The Charity Commission has disqualified a charity trustee who called for senior judges to be murdered and advocated an uprising against the government in Pakistan.  In an inquiry report into Muslim Foundation UK, published today, the regulator said it had last year disqualified Pir Muhammad Afzal Qadri from being a charity trustee for 10 years

The campaign group 38 Degrees has appointed the chief executive of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation as its new chair.  The online campaigning organisation said Sue Tibballs would lead the creation of a new five-year strategy.  Tibballs, who has been at the Sheila McKechnie Foundation since 2016, is a former chief executive of the Women’s Sport

Almost 60,000 voluntary sector jobs could be lost by the end of the year because of the Covid-19 crisis, new figures show.  Latest results from Pro Bono Economics’ Charity Sector Tracker, which involves research with more than 450 voluntary sector organisations, found that 19 per cent of respondents had already made job cuts and that

Tributes have been paid to the charity leader and face equality campaigner James Partridge, who has died suddenly at the age of 67. Partridge, who founded and led the charities Changing Faces and Face Equality International, died peacefully over the weekend in a Guernsey hospital due to a sudden infection. He had been receiving cancer

The National Emergencies Trust will provide £12m in funding to a number of charity partners aimed at enhancing support for some of the UK’s most at-risk groups. Each partner will provide assistance to a disproportionately impacted group that NET believes might have been underserved through the pandemic so far, according to its own gap analysis. 

A hospice charity that ran a drive-through donation service for its shops has had to stop taking items in stores after receiving more than 50 tonnes of stock in a month.  St Barnabas Hospice, which operates 26 stores in Lincolnshire, opened a drive-through donation service to receive stock from supporters for two weeks in early

The Charity Commission has issued an official warning to the trustees of an educational charity that allowed terrorist propaganda to be shown to children. The regulator said in an inquiry report on Friday that the Lantern of Knowledge Educational Trust, which has objects of advancing Islam and runs an independent secondary school in east London,

Fundraising needs to be prepared to reinvent itself and work with critics to avoid perpetuating injustices, according to a paper from fundraising think tank Rogare. The discussion paper, The donor-centred baby and the community-centric bathwater, argues that it is possible for donor-centric fundraising and community-centred fundraising philosophies to find common ground and work together. The

The chief executive of poverty relief charity Penny Appeal has promised a “root-and-branch review” of safeguarding arrangements across the organisation after an alleged incident at one of its partners. Harris Iqbal is interim head of Penny Appeal, which was set up in 2009 to provide poverty relief in Asia, the Middle East and Africa by

Charities facing financial difficulty due to Covid-19 can make use of a free new decision-making tool created by a law firm in consultation with the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. The tool set up by the specialist law firm Bates Wells, aims to guide charities and social enterprises through a number of difficult decisions based

The MP in charge of reviewing the sector’s role in the UK’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic has said that business has a big role to play, and that more must be done to encourage giving among the super-rich who “give peanuts”. Danny Kruger, the Conservative MP for Devizes and former charity leader, was being

Charities are being invited to apply for a share of a £5m fund designed to help them improve their digital capabilities.  The funding, which is being provided by the National Lottery Community Fund in partnership with the technology charity Cast, will be provided in a mix of grants and support worth up to a maximum

The poverty relief charity Penny Appeal has raised a serious incident report with the Charity Commission after reports of a safeguarding issue at a local community-based organisation in Gambia. The charity was set up in 2009 to provide poverty relief in Asia, the Middle East and Africa by offering water solutions, organising mass feedings, supporting

Cancer Research UK is launching a socially distant version of its flagship Race for Life event that supporters can take part in next month.  The charity raised £35m in 2018/19 through Race for Life, which normally consists of 5km, 10km and mud obstacle course events that participants are sponsored to take part in. In April,

Charities are being urged to consider applying to take part in a body that advises the government on public health issues.  The Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise Health and Wellbeing Alliance, which consists of about 20 voluntary sector and other partners, aims to ensure the lived experiences of the people they represent are reflected in