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

@Orchid876

I have no problem with people earning a decent wage from a charity, when they're recruited because they're the best person for the job and can help the charity to best fulfill its charitable ends. But that's not what happened here. The family set the charity up then exploited it for their own ends.

I haven't read enough about it to know what's happened here. Foundations do have initial costs to deal with, and often don't spend much because they need to work out their criteria for making grants, establish a board, consider proposals, work out how to manage money etc.

Was some of the money that was listed as 'consultancy' used through her office as she basically let it be taken over by this for a period to handle all the letter and emails etc?

I don't know. Maybe this is exactly the illustration of why charities need salaried professionals who know how to handle the funds they raise, know how to manage all the legal expectations and are upfront about what they get in return.

@CommodityPaper

On a personal note, I used to live in the same village as the family, Marston Moretaine in Bedfordshire. Its a sprawling village / mini town with one massive housing estate after another after another, not that nice really.

They lived in the tiny old part of the original village near the church, in the big old house that every old village has. Its surrounded by high fences and trees (always has been, even before their fame) and the whole family had absolutely NOTHING TO DO with anything in the village, or any of the people. They just used to swoop in and out of their electric gates and that was it. (I lived in a little cottage opposite for a few years).

@CommodityPaper

This has NOTHING TO DO with anything I'm afraid.

So they had electric gates and kept to themselves. They didn't want to be your pal. So what?

@KaySam

I think they went into it with good intentions and didn’t expect to raise so much,but greed got the better of his daughter and she wheeled him out at every opportunity and is now dining out on his name.

As for Ashley Cain and safayia they’ve taken advantage of the £1.6 million,he posted months ago he had to sell his clothes, yet he is now wearing £800 trainers,£1000 coats.She’s getting a boob job,and constant Nando’s.
They took their child off medication as it was making her drowsy,bloody hell the child was days from death she must have wanted to sleep, cuddled by her parents not treated to a big party.
People have to nominate a child who can apply for money from the fund but they have to go through hoops to get it.yet people gladly without question donated to help their child.

I think go fund me should be looking into things like this,I’ve seen a few on Instagram open a go fund me to help buying beds/wheelchairs/tummy tucks and the majority of them get greedy and take advantage of peoples good nature,

That reminds me of the case where a baby was born unexpectedly early to a couple from the U.K. while they were on holiday in New York. They set up a gofundme, because they said their insurance company would not pay out to cover the hospital and associated costs. A lot of money was raised, the insurance company DID in fact pay. I think they had scarcely been given a chance to assess the claim when the fund was set up. The couple said that they would give money to charity, but then pretty much faded into the background after giving some small amount.

Nobody had to donate money. I donated direct to NHS charities at the time. Why would i donate my hard earned cash to someone who was walking around his garden with no guarantee of where the money was actually going?

@StartingGrid

Reminiscent of the Azalyia Foundation, at least here a decent sum of money has been given out...

You're not wrong there!

In regards to staff working for charities being paid, I think Martin Lewis from MSE said it really well in this tweet: twitter.com/martinslewis/status/1354760883726114816

I have no problem with staff from charities being paid. I do think we would be better moving to a model where we pay more tax and charities don't need to exist.

@PermanentTemporary

Why shouldn't she be paid for her expertise?

Have you ever tried to organise a charity event without knowing how to publicise it? See how much you raise that way.

He walked round a garden. How much expertise did it need once the publicity machine had started? Celebrities were elbowing one another aside to leap on the bandwagon. It’s really sad to see this. Monetarising your centenarian parent’s fundraising really is quite disgusting.

Plan B is that you raise a million, invest it, and spend 75k a year every year on grants in perpetuity. Any additional funds are added to the endowment.

I know it's an entirely different charity, but Comic Relief and Children In Need run on this basis. It does make sense, but I do wish that they wouldn't keep spinning the line that 'every penny you give tonight can be helping somebody in desperate need tomorrow'. There's a reason why they don't say "give us your pocket money, kids, and we'll invest it in some quite possibly very shady projects and then, maybe by next year's CR night, some of it will have been granted to a good cause - which the general population may or may not believe is a worthy cause."

Charity threads are always the same. Lots of posters who think charities run themselves, that nobody should be paid, or if they are paid it should be minimum wage.

There are some hugely unrealistic people who think that any costs or wages paid by a charity are 'theft' or 'misappropriation of funds'; but I think the pendulum can swing far too far the other way. Of course, nobody should be out of pocket, but I think the living wage should be the standard for a lot of charities, especially as many of them also rely on volunteers who are paid nothing at all.

Charities like the Salvation Army and Islamic Relief seem able to pay their top people decent, non-excessive wages. Others will disagree, but I think taking a job running a charity from the top shouldn't be for the same motive as it would if you were being employed as CEO of E&Y or Unilever.

If your only motivation for taking the job - however well the figures perform under your leadership - is to coin it in off the back of a charity, I don't think you're the right person for the job at all. Why is it fair for everybody under you to work for a lower wage, or for no wage at all - because they believe in and support the charity - but when it comes to you, it's all comparisons with 'what you COULD earn in private industry' and justifications why you shouldn't lose out at all.

To me, it just has shades of the government seeing a subsidised bar and outrageous 'expenses' as a fair 'reward' for how brilliant they are, but when it comes to the poor in society, it's just assumed that you're disgraceful for hoping that you might be able to stay warm and also not regularly go hungry.

I'm also uncomfortable with the whole idea of 'ROI' as applied to a charity. I know that big charities often have to be run as businesses - and of course they will incur considerable costs - but it leaves a nasty taste when people's often sacrificial giving to what they believe is a worthy cause is considered a 'return', just the same as if it were from customers of a business choosing to pay money in return for getting something that they want.

Put crudely, I could regularly stand in the street collecting 'for X charity' and pass on 50% of what people give me to the charity, spending the rest on posters, flyers and megaphones to announce that I would be collecting, and some money for my own efforts.

The charity would be benefitting much more than they would if I didn't stand there collecting, but I don't think givers would be very happy to know that they had given a tenner of their hard-earned money in order for the charity to end up with a fiver. Even if I insisted to them that my ROI was quite reasonable, they would quite rightly tell me that it was ultimately their investment and not mine at all.

@rubyslippers

To raise over a million they spent £125k As a charity fundraiser this really irks me An ROI of 9:1 is pretty good Setting up a new foundation is front loaded with costs There is a question mark over the family being trustees and paid staff which needs to be ironed out but fundraising itself doesn’t come for free and nor should it All charities have costs to raising funds no material how they try to spin it

Yeah I don’t think it’s that bad. I also don’t have a big issue with family members being paid for their time if it’s become so big it’s basically job. They probably care more about it than someone else paid to do the same thing. So replacing them would mean less work for same money, just to seem to be above board.

This thread reminds me of the recent one about LadBaby. They quite clearly do very well off the back of their charitable 'machine', but anybody suggesting that they may be chiefly using the concept of charity in order to profit handsomely themselves is slapped down and shamed because the charity gets something that they otherwise wouldn't.

@GrendelsGrandma Why does the mencap ceo, for example, need a £200K salary? That’s completely ridiculous, care workers aren’t even being paid back for sleep in shifts, it’s disgusting.

@Blossomtoes

And he released charity singles, and his image was used for stamps and merch and brand partnerships

All which had to be negotiated, legally agreed, promoted, organised

Was all that supposed to have been done for free..?

FFS Ashley Cain was a professional footballer. He played championship level, at Coventry where the average wage was £5k A WEEK. I think he can afford a flashy car

Cain only made 10 appearances for Coventry and then played a few games for various lower league clubs. His career ended when he was 21 - he won't have amassed a fortune, I'm afraid.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll Exactly what you said, care workers in charity care homes are paid basic minimum wage or not at all (sleep in shift scandal) while the CEOs get more than the (official) salary of the PM, it’s unacceptable.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

*I'm also uncomfortable with the whole idea of 'ROI' as applied to a charity. I know that big charities often have to be run as businesses - and of course they will incur considerable costs - but it leaves a nasty taste when people's often sacrificial giving to what they believe is a worthy cause is considered a 'return', just the same as if it were from customers of a business choosing to pay money in return for getting something that they want.

Put crudely, I could regularly stand in the street collecting 'for X charity' and pass on 50% of what people give me to the charity, spending the rest on posters, flyers and megaphones to announce that I would be collecting, and some money for my own efforts.*

No, measuring ROI is what makes charities efficient and stops them from wasting money. They are continually tinkering with their fundraising to make sure they spend the smallest amount to raise the largest possible amount.

Eg if Option A is to organise a ball. Costs £10k, raises £50k.

Option B is to organise a fete. Costs £2k, raises £10k.

They are better off spending more to earn more. The return on investment is worth it. It's not exploiting people, it's targeting their efforts to where they will be most valuable. As if supporters were customers, yes. I don't see anything wrong with that.

In your example, say you stand in the street and raise £10 in an hour. You'd be better off working in a job that pays £12 and donating that money to the charity. There also wouldn't be any costs to pay. You have to look at the overall expenditure and income to make sure what you are doing is worth it.

[quote SW1amp]@Blossomtoes

And he released charity singles, and his image was used for stamps and merch and brand partnerships

All which had to be negotiated, legally agreed, promoted, organised

Was all that supposed to have been done for free..?[/quote]
I worked in the comms/PR business for over 30 years. Trust me when I say that all the work was frontloaded, once the publicity had started, it gained a momentum of its own.

Of course Hannah Ingram-Moore should have done it for nothing. Like the rest of us at the time, she wasn’t exactly rushed off her feet with anything else. All she had to do for the spin offs was make him available - hardly onerous.

It's all very well snipping at charities "wasting money" on staff, but I work for a charity, and I assure you, the fact that they don't have the money to spend on the best staff really shows.

I've chosen to go part time, therefore the role suits me, but the low standard for the money paid gets you far less bang for your buck than in the private sector. The service users would benefit tenfold from 10k each being put on the salaries and hiring the bet available rather than slashing costs on the staffing side.

[quote AutomaticMoon]@GrendelsGrandma Why does the mencap ceo, for example, need a £200K salary? That’s completely ridiculous, care workers aren’t even being paid back for sleep in shifts, it’s disgusting.[/quote]
I don't know exactly what the Mencap CEO's role involves. If it involves delivering services as in actually running centres and training and care etc on top of the fundraising and campaigning side of things, if that's what you need to pay to get someone to do it well then I think that's better than paying someone less to do it badly. What matters is the outcome for beneficiaries. I think £200k is too much for anyone to be paid, but that's a problem with the entire economy, not just salaries.

It's awful that care workers aren't valued more or paid for back pay. Paying the Mencap CEO won't sort that out though. Who does benefit? There are plenty of for-profit care companies where the CEOs take home monster salaries for running an organization a fraction of the size and complexity of Mencap.

@Joystir59

I don't know why on earth people gave money to an old man pushing a shopping trolley around his garden for the NHS. Just stop voting Tory.

I donated to the 100 year old Sikh man who was running half marathans for the NHS. He didn’t have a PR team and so didn’t raise as much money but I thought he was pretty inspirational.

Of course charities need to spend money on staffing and infrastructure. However, the amounts need to be reasonable and they have to be run properly. The Charity Commission has investigated the Captain Tom Foundation:

www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/captain-tom-foundation--regulators-last-year.html

I remember at the time of Captain Tom's walk, there was criticism that they were using the Just Giving platform which takes a proportion of the donation to cover their running costs whereas the Virgingiving/BT schemes do not.

I thought CelebrityPaper's post was interesting. Altruistic things like volunteering for a village fete, raising money for the village hall or local groups do suggest something about how they are motivated.

@ImNotHeartlessHonest

It's all very well snipping at charities "wasting money" on staff, but I work for a charity, and I assure you, the fact that they don't have the money to spend on the best staff really shows.

I've chosen to go part time, therefore the role suits me, but the low standard for the money paid gets you far less bang for your buck than in the private sector. The service users would benefit tenfold from 10k each being put on the salaries and hiring the bet available rather than slashing costs on the staffing side.

Yes, this

The whole thing was of bad taste to me, donating to NHS and NHS charities?

I pay A LOT of NI and tax to cover these costs, the idea of taking money from the public is just wrong.

I do not donate to large charities due to the lack of oversight required to be a registered charity.

I do donate physical assets to a local dog shelter and a local charity that provides for young familes without he basic necessities.

I think more people should donate local, these huge 'charities' are just another corporate entitiy.