Captain Tom Foundation spent more on costs than causes

[KerryWeaver]

This is a disappointing read.

"More than £240,000 of the registered charity’s expenditure went on the costs, while four grants totalling £160,000 were paid out to good causes. Of the foundation’s costs, £125,000, almost one-tenth of its income, went on fundraising consultancy fees, including to a firm run by Captain Tom’s daughter."

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/captain-tom-foundation-spent-more-on-costs-than-causes-z3b9vw0fh

She's obviously good at her job otherwise the story wouldn't have been picked up by the media and become such a HUGE story

Plenty of people do fundraising and pull off amazing stunts but saint sir captain tom's zimmer frame walk round his garden attracted publicity on another level

He has become worshipped more than jesus

That was not luck

@WorstXmasEver

Seems corrupt really but I bet the vast majority of charities are the same way.

Charity bosses make fortunes while counting on volunteers to help out in shops etc.

Charities aren't really about charities, they're just businesses with different funding models.

If charities were businesses they'd be phenomenal. Most businesses could only dream of 70-80% profit margins.

Do people think charities run themselves?

@StickyToffeePuddingAndIceCream

Controversial but I was never into the whole captain Tom thing, nothing against the bloke and great that people donated to the nhs through it but there was just something that didnt sit right. The daughter seemed to be lapping up the attention doing all the interviews with him, getting where water can't, no surprises to be honest that she'd see pound signs. I wasn't impressed when they jetted off on a luxury holiday and then we had pictures rammed down our throats when we couldn't even see my family down the road!! I always said to my husband if it'd been a war veteran who lived in a small council house doing laps around his house they'd have never got the attention.

Totally agree with you - I always had my suspicions - but at the time thought the money was going to fund "extras" for the NHS staff who worked such long hours. Later when the daughter talked about a 'foundation" I thought she was there for herself. There are many old veterans who do good but don't get publicity

@CaraVanDam

She's obviously good at her job otherwise the story wouldn't have been picked up by the media and become such a HUGE story

Plenty of people do fundraising and pull off amazing stunts but saint sir captain tom's zimmer frame walk round his garden attracted publicity on another level

He has become worshipped more than jesus

That was not luck

Quite agree^^

Plenty of people do fundraising and pull off amazing stunts but saint sir captain tom's zimmer frame walk round his garden attracted publicity on another level

Yes and the “Sir” was the icing on the shitcake. He walked a bit round his garden. May not even have been his idea but his PR daughter did her thing and all of a sudden, after a 100 years, even having served his country, a wee jaunt got him a Sir.

It’s like a video I saw of Joe Wicks, where he was responding to people talking about his “overnight success” saying he’s worked really hard for ten years knocking his pan in to build his business and struggling to get it where he wanted it to be. It was these years of work that made him successful and you too can do it if you just work hard and keep at it. Yeah Joe, ten years and a fucking global pandemic where people were looking for something, anything to do with their cooped up kids for an hour in the morning to get them off their arses and delaying the dreaded homeschooling. Were it not for the pandemic you’d be just another you tube fitness guy among the hundreds of other you tube fitness guys, trying to be the one that went viral.

Well, there are an awful lot of charities and many are doing same/ similar things. I once needed to use the “ help “ telephone line for a specific reason and really struggled to ever find the right and sadly interested when I needed help. Everyone willy nilly setting up a charity for often cross purposing and similar causes isn’t really always helpful in times of need. I wish there was more regulation.

@Toanewstart23

No donations to any nhs trusts from the foundation at all

our community trust got money....our team got around 300quid ( from the 30 odd million initially raised)

Captain Tom was truly inspirational. How he did that at his age. Wonderful. But might have been better to do it for smaller charities, with a more direct input. As for NHS supported by charities. Just feeds into Tory privatised nonsense

The family are opportunists. They’ve paid themselves a nice amount of money.
I’m afraid I’m someone who hasn’t bought into the ‘Captain Tom the lockdown hero’ story. It was a publicity stunt right from the start.
I’m happy that money has been raised for good causes but not so impressed that his family have simultaneously been lining their own pockets.

Each trust spent the money on its own thing.

But somebody somewhere decided to spend money raised for the good of the NHS/NHS workers on coins to commemorate the person raiding that money!?!

She's obviously good at her job otherwise the story wouldn't have been picked up by the media and become such a HUGE story

Plenty of people do fundraising and pull off amazing stunts but saint sir captain tom's zimmer frame walk round his garden attracted publicity on another level

She clearly knew well how to capitalise on the opportunity and maximise publicity, but I still think it was his age that was the main draw. If he'd been 40, 50, 60 or even 70, in average health for that age, I'm really not convinced that he would have become such an icon and inspired so much giving. The only person to have (unknowingly) been deliberately responsible for that factor was his mum - giving birth to him almost 100 years previously!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Each trust spent the money on its own thing.

But somebody somewhere decided to spend money raised for the good of the NHS/NHS workers on coins to commemorate the person raiding that money!?!

She's obviously good at her job otherwise the story wouldn't have been picked up by the media and become such a HUGE story

Plenty of people do fundraising and pull off amazing stunts but saint sir captain tom's zimmer frame walk round his garden attracted publicity on another level

She clearly knew well how to capitalise on the opportunity and maximise publicity, but I still think it was his age that was the main draw. If he'd been 40, 50, 60 or even 70, in average health for that age, I'm really not convinced that he would have become such an icon and inspired so much giving. The only person to have (unknowingly) been deliberately responsible for that factor was his mum - giving birth to him almost 100 years previously!

We put our money towards a staff Christmas lunch .....Christmas 2021....we had had the money for ages but never got round to spending it ( nhs community nursing team).... we decided collectively what to spend our money on ( about 300quid) .....it wasn’t a management decision

If charities were businesses they'd be phenomenal. Most businesses could only dream of 70-80% profit margins.

But they seem to want the best of both worlds: all the perks and rewards of business but without a lot of the hard graft that goes into it.

If Kelloggs want me to buy some of their cornflakes, they have to make me want some rather than any other cornflakes/cereals/foodstuffs, convince me that they're worth the price and, of course, have everything in place to produce and supply a desirable product.

If I say "No, thanks - not interested" to anybody promoting them in the supermarket, and turn away, this doesn't convey any implication of my own moral stance, kindness, basic humanity or care for those worse off than me whatsoever. There is no scope for the promo person to emotionally blackmail me as to who might suffer as a result of my decision not to spend any money with them.

Considering that, at the point of donation, charities don't have to supply anything or even give the full unembellished story of how donations are spent then and there - all they have to do is to ask me to GIVE them money (not exchange it for a product that helps me); and if I decline for any reason - even if it's because I already regularly give to them or a similar charity that I consider better run or have good reason to doubt their purpose/sincerity/honesty/ethics/efficiency - it still makes me look like a potentially uncaring person to anybody nearby and there's the accepted opening for the fundraiser to 'appeal' my decision and maybe try to make me feel guilty.

'Charity' covers an enormous scope of activity, but it's hardwired into our society that, whenever somebody says that word, we should give generously and if we say no (at least without profuse apologies or 'acceptable' reason), we are automatically the bad guy. Nobody is ever going to try to lay any moral guilt on me for buying Aldi cornflakes instead of Kellogg's.

We put our money towards a staff Christmas lunch .....Christmas 2021....we had had the money for ages but never got round to spending it ( nhs community nursing team).... we decided collectively what to spend our money on ( about 300quid) .....it wasn’t a management decision

But the upshot of it was that you could have chosen to go down the pub and spend it all on booze, had you wanted to. Nobody originally found CT so personally inspiring that they felt compelled to open their purses to enable a group of NHS workers to go and get steaming. I'm not criticising you personally, or even your management, even if you had made that decision: I just think it was so easy to plead "give generously - it's all in aid of our beloved NHS", when that didn't necessarily tell the whole story as commonly believed at all.

Didn't one of the daughters work on Boris Johnson's mayoral campaign? Haven't RTFT so not sure if it's been mentioned.

The whole thing was a PR stunt.

Is this the type of thing The Charities Commission looks into? If so, perhaps they should.

They are.

I hope the charities commission are looking at the Azalyia Cain foundation too

People are too trusting and emotive when it comes to sob stories and donations.

Pretty standard for a charity with setting up costs, etc.

We seem to have a national obsession with setting up charities. I understand the compulsion, but the first few years are the most costly and much of the money raised doesn't go to where the 'givers' are intending it to. Rather than setting up a charity, it is worth researching whether there are similar charities or ones with similar causes so that more money goes where it is intended. Obviously many will not be in the right frame of mind especially if there has been a personal tragedy and there is a natural desire for some good to come out of it.

Charities are part of the UK industry now, which at times makes me uncomfortable especially some of the larger ones,.

I've said this before on one of the many and regular threads that turn to charity bashing.

I am a paid part time charity fundraiser. And I'm almost scared to admit it. From the lists in here and other threads, charity workers are lowlife grabbers exploiting vulnerable people.

I don't chug. I don't harangue people. I don't expect anyone to give.

I organise events which people enjoy participating in. I appoint suppliers such as first aid trans, caterers, marquees etc. all of whom charge. All of the profit from events is spent directly in beneficiaries.

I oversee a charity shop. I make sure the volunteers are safe and well supported. That the space is well organised and insured. Heated and lit. And that income is maximised by submitting Gift Aid applications.

I write Funding bids. There is huge competition from all of the other charities for limited grants. So I need to spend time researching and preparing my application. Sometimes weeks. And then cross my fingers that my application was better than everyone else's.

I manage relationships with corporate supporters. Which takes time. Lots of tours of our services, making sure to be respectful to the people using those services.

I write tender applications to local authority who commission services. Other people's jobs in the organisation rely on me succeeding with the application.

I visit community group such as churches, round table etc to talk about our work and to thank them for their support.

A previous manager of mine taught me to always 'thank them bank' ie never bank a donation until I've show gratitude to the donor. I always live by this.

I manage our comms. Remind the community that we are there. Remind them of the difficulties people we support face.

I lobby local authorities, politicians etc to keep the issues we support on their radar. Asking them to improve facilities.

And so much more.

For little pay.

And statutory AL, ie 20 days pro rata.

And regular bashing on threads like this.

Sigh.

I see this has turned into an anti-charity thread with falsehoods about charities being peddled (70-80% profit margins, for example).

I don't doubt that some charities are corrupt and some have corrupt people involved. However, the law is clear.

A charity may not distribute its profits. Any excess of income over expenditure must be retained by the charity and used for its charitable purposes.

The trustees (who are the people in charge) may not be paid for acting as trustees.

Where a trustee is paid as an employee or for providing goods or services to the charity, they may not vote on any decisions relating to this payment and the trustees must be able to show that the payment is in the charity's best interests and reasonable for what the charity is getting.

If any trustees are employed or providing goods or services, they must be a minority of the trustees, so if a charity has, say, six trustees, no more than 2 of them can be employed or paid for providing goods or services.

The rules about payment include payments by companies owned by the charity. A payment to a company or person associated with a trustee is treated as a payment to the trustee.

As I understand it from the reports in the press, the Captain Tom Foundation is being investigated because it appears to have broken the law on payments to trustees, in that, since two of the four trustees were husband and wife, payments were being made to a company associated with 50% of the trustees. There are also questions as to whether the payments were reasonable and in the Trust's best interests.

Gazelda have a thank you from me. I know people who work in the charity sector and they are good people doing great work. I have a friend who is senior in a large charity and she earns much less than she did when she worked in the corporate sector. She's making a difference and she puts her heart and soul into it.

I agree Gazelda. All the nonsense people spout about charities without ever having volunteered or been directly involved.

Keep up the good work.

I was asked to apply for the manager's job in the charity shop where I volunteer. 36 hours a week for £19.7k. Shop is open 52 hours a week. I would be the only keyholder, no deputy, no other paid staff. Statutory minimum pension, sick pay, holidays. No "perks" like company car, gym membership, subsidised canteen or childcare. No staff discount.

Gazelda

You sound like you do an amazing amount of great, valuable work, and I most certainly don't begrudge you receiving payment for it, nor wish to 'bash' you at all: neither you nor the vast majority of people who work 'on the ground' for charities.

I realise that there are considerable costs involved in running a charity - I am employed PT by a charity (albeit one that is funded by giving from its members rather than soliciting donations from the public, but that's by the by) and I acknowledge that I am an overhead.

Charities do an incredible amount of good work throughout the country, BUT, like with all industries, I believe there are a lot of people who are only in it for themselves. To be fair, there's no shame or misunderstanding in being in most industries only for yourself - but charity is different, owing to the way a lot of it is funded by public donations given on trust; and I think it's very morally wrong when some (usually high up and very well paid indeed) charity employees assume that there is no difference between getting money in from kind people donating in aid of a cause and getting in the same amount from customers choosing to buy the goods you sell for their own benefit.

@BoodleBug51

I hope the charities commission are looking at the Azalyia Cain foundation too

People are too trusting and emotive when it comes to sob stories and donations.

This is it. It's playing on peoples emotion and then those very people act outraged when the charity is questioned. Charities should always remain transparent with where the funds go.

And I'm not a charity basher, I volunteer for charities with work, including doing collections for food banks. Some charities are brilliant, but there will always be a few that aren't as honest as they say they are. Charities should be investigated where there are concerns.