to wonder if this is a common scam?

[Summerisgoinggreat]

You set yourself up as a wellbeing practitioner and offer your services for free in places like women's shelters, toddler groups, community centres etc. where you run well being groups, arts and crafts etc, 2-6 times per month for free or a reasonable fee, which last 1 hour to 2 hours max each time.

Because you're offering it for free, you then apply to various different charitable grant organisations and say you're helping people with xyz and you're helping this number of people. You also add your blog visitors to the number of people you're declaring as being helped and then the grants awarded to you are thousands and thousands which you then just use to pay yourself an extortionate hourly wage for running a group.

I've just found out about something doing this at a monthly group I attend, where she charges us, and am astonished, and am now wondering how common this is. Me and my friend have looked through some of the 'charity's' online information available and have already found a 9k grant for a course which was run a total of 18 weeks, and the women had to pay to attend anyway. There's no other costs associated with running the charity, as it's just one woman, a small number attend, and the arts and crafts are not an expensive type- just notebooks and tote bags and a few other bits. For 9k. That's just one grant, as plenty more are listed as sponsors on the website. AIBU for being shocked and wondering if this is classed as legitimate and okay to do? This person only runs groups during term time too and does a max of one a week, occasionally two, and has a different grant for each of them.

And when I say 18 week course, I mean 2 hours at a time, with no other resources needed in between. Just a bit of meditating, journaling and cake.

Yes absolutely sone people do scam money this way

I know of one myself she had been reported but seems to just come up with another way of scamming for funds

that’s who she is a con artist, it’s odd as people either seem to absolutely adore her or find her so disingenuous that it concerns them. Either way she gets under your skin

Is this a registered Charity? If so complain to the Charity Commissioners.

If not then maybe point out to funding agencies the dodgey practice

My next door neighbour is a full blown charity con-artist. She has set up a "charity", unregistered, and she does fundraising events for big things. Like a library bus.

Everyone piles in, donating sausages and parting with their money at charity football matches or whatever. Saying things like 'this will be great for the kiddies' and 'hope the library bus will stock Jane Austen' without actually looking in to what's actually happening with the library bus.

Then she buys it, has her photo taken for the newspaper...and then she sells it and launches a charity fashion show to raise money for a mini bus to take old people to hospital appointments.

And then it's 'Hope the bus will be wheelchair friendly' and it all goes round again.

Yes, it's a CIC charity? Would that be under charity commissioners too? I'm worried she might try and say she's an 'expert' in her field and say that this validates her massive hourly wage. She's done some mental health training, but she's not got anything like a counselling license or anything like that. We've only uncovered the lottery grants so far. She was constantly asking me to nominate her for smaller grants and big her up, so I just assumed she was only getting small grants for her time and effort, but something has happened which means it's all been exposed to a few of us.

Donating sausages? 😂

If she's operating through a CIC then there are regulations that restrict the amount you can pay out to a shareholder - is she one? There is a regulator for CICs so you can complain to them - details will be on the government website

CICs differ from charities in that the trustees can be paid; they are essentially limited companies and liable for tax if they make a profit in the same way normal companies are. They can be structured in a couple of different ways but any profits are supposed to go back into the company or the wider community. They file annual accounts plus a separate form which you can see online at companies house, this form is supposed to outline their activities for the previous year and also show how much (if at all) the directors were remunerated

She's the CEO. I saw the accounts but it doesn't show all the grants she's received, based on the grants I've been able to find so far. The profit is listed at nearly £1 after ingoings and outgoings. There's other directors too. Her accounts state that she doesn't need to be audited.

I guess the main thing is, is that even if it's a business, she's applying for multiple charity grants to be able to 'offer support' but using the grants to pay herself a handsome wage (and possibly the directors too, if they're aware, but they seem like silent directors).

CIC = community interest company. Income is usually reinvested rather than paid to shareholders. Even charities can charge fees for their activities and often those targeted feel less obliged to attend if it is free. They are required to submit an annual return of accounts. There may be hidden costs like venue hire, materials, health and safety, refreshments, travel etc.

And grants come with strings attached. She may never see the full amount if she cannot evidence how it has been used and the outcomes achieved.

Donating sausages? 😂

Yes, sausages form here, drinks from there, entertainment from round the corner, wheelchair ramps from somewhere else and before you know it she has a full blown event making thirty thousand pounds.

She's been using venues for free and the refreshments is usually a bottle of juice between all the guests and a couple of supermarket cakes. I looked up her accounts and the last couple of years it's said there's been no income to reinvest, so she must be paying herself thousands just to run the groups, and do her own instagram, and then declaring no profit, so no tax to pay.

Put it this way, she was applying for a 50+grand grant to run an hourly group once a fortnight, term time, which has barely any cost to run, in a free venue. The venue found out and she's now blackmailing them into paying her £90 an hour to run the group, if she can't get her grant.

She's made documents where she's claiming she's supported hundreds of families and she's always asking those of us who attend to nominate her for different awards and grants with saying exactly who we are and how it helped us.

I never had any problem with her applying for grants to pay herself to run the groups and then charging a fee on top, but now I've found out just how much these grants were. I know the 9k one was awarded because it's listed on the charity's website as an outgoing grant of theirs.

The audit exemption is normal for small companies. However she absolutely needs to be declaring grant income on her accounts, it's taxable like any other income for a CIC. The accounts are filed a long time after the financial year end so it's possible the grants you're aware of weren't awarded until after the year end of the most recent accounts. Most funders will ask for a breakdown of what the funding will be used for so if she is using the grants to pay her wages she will probably have to have declared this.

If she's paying herself (or any other director) a big wage it should appear on the separate form (CIC34) at the end.

Why can't this woman be paid for her work? Genuinely confused.

52k a year, for 2 hours a month?

Wow you're so bitter op! Is there anyone else stepping up to run these 18 hour courses ? No ? Would you ? It's clearly not money for nothing if she's showing up. Offer yourself to do it for free or move on.

i do do plenty of stuff for free and have done for a long time. i've even helped her promote it, plus i've always paid to attend, so i've never had an issue with her being paid. it's just the sheer amount of funding she's applying for, saying it's to help vulnerable people, but it's all going to her, for very little work- 1-2 hours per week max, term time only. so you think she should pay herself 1.5k for an hour and 45 minutes of work?

she's blackmailing a local charity which does a lot more for the community because they want to apply for an 8k grant to pay their staff, minimum wage, and she wanted to be able to apply for a 52k grant for herself to do the same job there as some of their staff once a fortnight. (which she told them she was doing for free for them as a volunteer). she couldn't apply for it, as the charity had already applied for it, thinking she was offering her services alongside their paid minimum wage staff for free.

00BonneMaman00
Why can't this woman be paid for her work? Genuinely confused.

52k a year, for 2 hours a month?

You said there was a £9k grant OP

How did we get to £52k? Sorry if I've missed something.

Whilst 52k seems excessive you are being naive in thinking that her two hours are the only "work" she does. What about planning, ordering/buying materials, preparation time, liaising with other organisations to set up the sessions, advertising etc. Grant applications take up huge amounts of time in themselves. The organisation can say no and ask someone else to run the activities. Report her to the funders if you really think she is defrauding them.

That was just ONE of the MANY grants she's getting. She goes to different venues and offers to run a fortnightly or monthly 1-2 hour group for free, and applies for a grant for each and every single one. Plus other grants for the whole business. She gives each group a different name and applies for a grant under that name. There was a 3k one for a period of two months for one of her online groups, which we pay to go to, and is only once a month anyway! So 1.5k per online group she ran for 1hour and 45 minutes, which cost her nothing but 2 hours of her time. It's not rich people going to these groups, but really vulnerable people on the breadline, with mental health issues.

It's all charities' money, so this is money which has been fundraised from the public and then going to finance one person under the guise of offering an abundance of support for vulnerable people, when the support is just once a fortnight, or once a month for a small group.

I don't have an issue with anyone getting paid for their work, like I said I've paid to go everytime, even when I was in poverty, and even gave a donation once, thinking she was just getting a decent wage for her work. I suspected she was paying herself maybe £30 per hour, which is average for mental health work, and had ZERO issue with this. But actually it is thousands and thousands of charity money, for a few hours work, under the guise of altruism.