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.

That’s fairly common in charities and similar (like CIC). They basically use grants to pay large wages to one or two select individuals

she gets us to advertise for her and help with the grant nominations!

she takes every school holiday off and spends plenty of time relaxing. she's always telling me about the importance of not overworking yourself and spends most of her days doing art courses for herself and that.

I'm aware of planning etc, but she's doing the same things over and over and gets a lot of her ideas from someone else's book.

52k is just ONE grant. So there's loads. Plus she charges for a lot of things as well.

They did say no, and she said she would report them to the grant people if they didn't keep her and pay her, and that she would say that they aren't running a group anymore. Even though they have always been running the group, she's just been someone who comes along to the group once a fortnight as extra support with some crafts, off her own back. That's why we feel like she's a massive scammer and taking the biscuit.

I know a couple of people who run local community groups

They have to pay for

Hire of the community hall/space

Insurance

i've already said loads of times she gets the venues for free because they're community centres and she tells them she's doing it for them for free.

I would say it's extremely cheeky and taking the piss but probably not illegal- I've always found if applying for grants the amount of 'qualifying' pre and post was huge, so I'm suprised if she is getting away with it- but that may be because I was applying via a business and not a charity -

one of the grants by the community lottery, said it was supposed to be so she could offer a year of support, but she did three lots of six weeks, which ended well before the end of the year. so she's not sticking to the terms of what she applied for the grant for.

we are seeing all sorts of lavish trips now out and holidays abroad in really fancy resorts even though she says her husband doesn't get paid much at all for his work, and this is all she does, so clearly all the grants are paying for this.

i think i'm mostly angry because she's always going on about jesus and being a christian and pretending to be this humble modest altruist that was doing it all out of the goodness out of her heart, but now it just seems she was doing it for her own benefit, and using her friends in the process to get as much money she could squeeze out of it. plus the fact there's so many other charities in the area doing so much more for the community on a daily basis who could have really done with that kind of funding, and all having to pay their staff minimum wage to run similar groups. they even charge people a lot less to attend, as well!

I work in this field and I mean this in the kindest way but you seem to have a very limited understanding of how the charity sector and grant funding works. You haven't said anything so far that rings immediate alarm bells to me. And the fact is without you being involved in this CIC you don't actually know exactly how the funding is being spent or how much work is going into this behind the scenes.

Grant fundraising is the hardest its ever been right now. Anyone working in that area will tell you. Applications to funders have gone up by 400% in some cases. So the funding she's getting is actually likely to be limited and it will seem like she's applying for loads of funding - everyone in the charity sector has to apply for loads of funding because the success rates are so low (like under 1 in 10 applications are successful).

If you have concerns report it to the CIC Regulator and specific funders who you know the funding is coming from. Funding opportunities for CICs are already very limited so I imagine she's getting funding from only a couple of places.

How do you know its £52k?

Where was this £52k from?

If the £52k was from the National Lottery Community Fund that would mean it was one of their more complex grant programmes, which would require a lot more in the way of pre and post application checks.. so it would be difficult to see how she'd got away with anything she wasn't supposed to be doing.

The grants from the Lottery under £20k MAYBE you could fool the system because there's less reporting

What do you mean by you help with the grant nominations? You're writing the applications for her?? Why would you do that if you think something untoward is going on?

It seems like she offering a service and running this organisation. It's not literally just her actual running of each group. Surely there's prep and admin and all sorts, same as any business or charity. I can see it seems greedy but she is not running an actual charity. She is trying to pay herself a high salary, and is managing to get away with it. If you feel the grants are being fraudulently obtained then I guess speak to the charity commission or hmrc.
Or I guess just vote with your feet.
Could you set up something similar that was strictly volunteer led? It sounds like you and a few others have had enough of her and her ways. So could you liaise with someone else to set up a new group?

She's shared six on her website which have supported just for this year alone so far, and none of them are the ones which she's asked me to nominate her for, which she always gets.

I've only just found this all out. But basically she always messages me asking me to nominate her for different awards which have a cash amount and to write a testimonial saying what her cic does and how it's supported me. i never felt like it had supported me that much, it was just nice to chat to some other mums once a month, but as she was my friend i felt obliged to say yes.

The grants from lottery were under 20k and they definitely weren't used in the purpose they've been described as, as she told me all the ins and outs of those courses she was getting funding for and how much work went into them.

The fact is, is that she was lying to people running other charities, saying she was doing some of her groups for free, and now is blackmailing one of those charities, asking them to not apply for their 8k of funding to run an entire community centre and pay their multiple staff's wages, so she can get her 52k grant for herself. through their premises for a toddler group she helps out at there. They were giving her free lunch, thinking she was doing it all out of the goodness of her heart. i know all this because my good friend who knew her as well, happened to get a manager job there recently. (Small town). The grant woman has zero staff, no running costs etc, it's just like a side hobby for her. Plus she charges for the courses anyway, so she's already getting paid to run them!

Look, bottom line is it's REALLY hard to get funding right now. Harder than ever. Charities and CIC's are closing all over the shop.

It would not be an easy or straight forward way of scamming to get money... So no, in answer to your title question it is not a common scam.

You seem to have a limited understanding of what's going on and how grant funding / CICs work. I'm sorry but... that definitely comes across in the posts. So I think it's perfectly possible this woman ISN'T doing anything untoward. Maybe the grants are to invest in her CIC or to do other work unconnected to the work you have participated in?

But ultimately if you have concerns contact the CIC Regulator and the funders.

What else can anyone on this thread really say?

We were talking about it tbh. Obviously we wouldn't be applying for tens of thousands of pounds in grants to do it, because we have morals and I know from experience how much time and money these things take to organise, as I've done them before, and it isn't in the region of paying myself thousands and thousands of pounds for the time it takes. I wouldn't be paying myself a massive 50k a year plus CEO wage from community grant money, to do it, as, unlike some people on this page, I happen to think that that is immoral.

I was talking to this original scammer friend about setting something up in the past too, in something I've got experience in, but it never materialised. Probably because she realised I was serious about doing it for the community rather than huge profit!! She was encouraging me to apply for large grants for a personal project of mine as well, and it didn't sit right with me, so I didn't. It doesn't sit right with me, even if some people think it's okay.

I don't have limited understanding because she's ALWAYS telling me about different grants she's got, with different names and she even encouraged me to apply for one myself and told me how easy it is to get them, so she obviously knows how to word it to make it sound like she's doing loads for the community.

She even told me once she had all this money leftover from one local grant, she had to spend before end of financial year which she didn't know how to, as she didn't have any groups being run at that time. We live in a rich county so she's probably got a lot more grants she can apply for.

I know what work she does because we were friends and she always told me all her projects.

She's been caught lying and blackmailing anyway, so I don't know why you're ignoring that part and trying to make out she's some innocent investor.

Limited understanding of grant fundraising and reporting and CICs. Various things you've said across the thread aren't how it works / don't add up.

But regardless, if you're sure she's scamming funders out of money then as I said report to the CIC Regulator, the National Lottery Community Fund and the other funders.

If she is, then that is terrible and immoral, at a time when funding for legitimate charity work is so scarce.

If you are outraged and certain of what she's doing then report.

Get her reported OP. You don’t need our permission

I know, I just wanted support in gathering evidence and knowing who to report to and how. Not the third degree and people being derogatory about my understanding of the situation. I've even read the report of the lottery funding and it says the funding 'is to run sessions', and the dates were for a 12 month period. She ran 18 weekly sessions at venues with no cost. So she's paid herself nearly 9k of a year's worth of funding, to run 18 sessions. The funding report says nothing about advertising costs, it just says the running of the sessions, which is just her and some fruit juice and cake and some notebooks/crayons. That's £500 per session. No one charges that to run sessions unless you're Tony Robbins, generating millions of pounds in doing so. Surely that's proof enough that it's dodgy, right?

Please please please report this person

The fact she’s getting the venues for no cost is down to the discretion of that individual venue, if they want to offer it to her for free that’s their decision.

How do you know she’s not running sessions elsewhere or private sessions etc for specific groups.

Running workshops no matter what kind involve planing, admin and prep, you cant possibly know everything she’s doing with her time.

But she is providing a service to the community so it's a fair use of the grants is it not?

Those grants come with a lot of project administration including requirements for evidence of how many people you've engaged with.

If you're upset about a woman claiming charity grants for not many workshops, you'd be horrified to find out how much of your tax money goes to many different civil servants doing very little for their salaries! I say this as someone who works for HMRC!

she names the individual groups she runs and applies for grants under individual groups, all with different names. the funding i'm talking about above is for a specific group, with a specific name, which the grant has been provided for for that group of that name. which costs nowhere near as much as 9k of admin and planning to run three times for six weeks. only two of us signed up for two of those times anyway, so it's not like she went above and beyond with advertising it. i've run workshops, groups, events etc myself and I know that the costs of doing it all yourself don't come anywhere near to 9k of planning hours.

she shares everything she does on eventbrite and if she was running private groups for someone, she'd be charging them, as she has always done.

p.s. it's not down to their discretion as (as i've said numerous times in my posts), she's lied to them that she's doing it as a free volunteer! in order to use their user numbers as evidence towards her grant applications behind their back! how can they use discretion if she's withholding the whole facts from them!

anyway, i'm bowing out of this thread now and unfollowing it, as people can't be bothered to read all my posts properly, where i explain about her lies and deceit, so there's no way there can be a proper back and forth, rational conversation. some people just come on here to try and find something to argue with, i'm sure!

You seem really angry that not everyone is completely agreeing with you OP.
If you are concerned, report this person. You don’t need to “gather evidence” just raise your concerns.

Most grants have conditions for payment so if she is getting what you suggest I’d also expect there to be some audit/governance checks. A total grant of £52k wouldn’t necessarily be paid in one payment and might be released through staged claims - where her claims would be checked and verified. 18 sessions in one venue but trying to follow your thread she’s using multiple venues? So again it’s potential more than the ones you are using/involved with.

Individuals can't apply for Lottery funding. This is from their website:

"You need to be a constituted group or organisation to apply for funding
We can’t fund individual people.
We only fund groups or organisations to run projects. And we fund lots of different types of organisations.
If you are a voluntary or community group (not an incorporated organisation) wanting to apply for our funding, you need to have a written constitution (or governing document) which sets out rules on how your organisation is run – this is known as being ‘constituted’."

So is this woman using the constitution of the body who the OP says are letting her use their premises for free?