Tuesday 10 March 2009

FakeCharity Of The Day

From The Metro:

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was left ashen-faced at the launch of the Government's domestic violence campaign when she was accused of using "gimmicks" and "spin". Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, stunned ministers and police at the round-table discussion in central London with a verbal assault on the Government's record...

OK, Refuge, registered charity number 277424, let's have a quick glance through their 2008 accounts ...

Page 4: "Refuge works in parternship with a number of different housing associations and local authorities ..."

Page 9: "After close to three years of developing a relationship with New Philanthropy Capital (NCP)*, Refuge is delighted to announce that it been selected as one of their charities of support... Of particular note is the funding we received from the Home Office... Refuge has also been fortunate enough to continue to receive support from a number of other trust and statutory funders, some of whom include ... London Councils... We are also very grateful to the Home Office and Comic Relief for their continued support...

Page 10: "Specific high level aims for 2008/9 include... Establishing an Eastern European community outreach project in four London Boroughs funded by the Big Lottery."

Page 11: "Grant income was up 32.7% to £784,010 due to additional funding to develop our advocacy services in Kent, Richmond, Lambeth and Lewisham."

Page 19/Note 5 confirms that all grant income was from local councils, Home Office, Ministry of Justice etc.

Page 14: Income from "Supporting People": £2,920,627.

Page 19/Note 4: "The Supporting People (SP) grant is awarded by contact to Refuge as the Service PRovider by the Administering Authority (Local Authority/Borough) with approval of the Commission Body (a partnership of local housing, social care, health and probation statutory services). The SP grant is restricted for Refuge provision of support services as broadly defined by the DCLG [Department for Communities and Local Government]"

* The NCP are a new one on me, and I specialise in this crap. They appear to have 'only' received £63,000 from the Big Lottery Fund (page 22 of their 2007 accounts), as well as "£183,175 from Friends of New Philanthropy Capital, Inc." (page 12), which appears to be a US-based fakecharity.

I've got to stop digging now, this is getting too gruesome.

9 comments:

Letters From A Tory said...

But doesn't that make it even more intruiging that the chief executive of Refuge turned on Jacqui Smith yesterday with such a brutal condemnation of the latest Labour wheeze to pretend to combat domestic violence?

The concern is always that when charities receive money from central or local government, they lose their independent voice - yet Refuge seem to be finding their own path....

Mark Wadsworth said...

LFAT, we can only begin to guess what sort of wrangling goes on behind the scenes - if you were Jacqboots, would you not be sorely tempted to shovel another million or two into Refuge to buy them off? Or would you stamp your petulant foot and cut them off entirely?

Letters From A Tory said...

She needs the votes, Labour need the votes. I'm sure she can find some extra funding to keep Refuge happy and involve them in any 'consultation' that she organises.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

Hope you're registering these at fakecharities.org?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Obo, I've submitted at least a dozen and none has appeared yet, so I'm not bothering for the time being.

Anonymous said...

MW

"I've submitted at least a dozen and none has appeared yet"

That's surprising. I've submitted two in the last 10-15 days and they've both appeared pretty quickly. However, since the submitter is not identified (except with a "user number"), it's possible that I'm not the "user" whose submission has been accepted.

Mark Wadsworth said...

U, I submitted my three favourite drugs charities, Addaction, National Drug Prevention Alliance (funded by a US fakecharity, no less) and D.A.R.E a couple of weeks ago and they're still not up.

Anonymous said...

MW

I submitted 4children and the Plunkett Foundation both of which have appeared and (I believe) the recorded dates of submission are the dates I submitted them.

BTW I'm impressed that your overview now extends to the US.

Anonymous said...

A Brand is a fat Hoon

Smith is a Brand (so is Dianne Abbot)