FakeCharity Fun

RR emailed me to ask whether Reprieve are a fakecharity.

Their website is absolutely textbook fakecharity template, with the tabs for "Home", "About us", "Our work" and "Get involved". It doesn't have the tabs for "Careers" or "Our partners" but hey. Interestingly, it doesn't show their registered charity number (so presumably they were using a beta version or something).

We can ignore the annual report on their website as it does not go into enough detail. Their full accounts are available on the Charities Commission website.

'Donations' (Note 2 on page 21), total £328,480, include an 'anoymous' donation of £200,000. Hmm. As the tax reclaim amounts to about 22% of the total income, that means the charity must be reasonably certain that said donor is an individual with a personal UK income tax liability of at least £56,410. Hmm. So either they play fast and loose with procedures, or he's not 'anonymous' at all.

'Incoming resources from charitable activities' (Note 4, page 22), total £633,388, include £30,000 from the Foreign Office (ker-ching!). However, the largest single source of income was £194,481 from the 'JEHT Foundation'. "Who are they?" you may ask, well, I've no idea, so let's a do a quick Google and find out...

Right. That source of income will have dried up, then.