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

@nettie434

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.

Yes, but for all CelebrityPaper knew, they could have been giving substantial amounts to another charity, or donating locally on an anonymous basis. It's not a fair thing to make out that they were wrong-hearted because they didn't run a stall at the village fete or fork out for church roof repairs or whatever.

@Ozanj so why is this not shown ? They show themselves asking for bike or gardener recommendations but not much about the stuff they’re supposedly doing.
You see people ask for help and they get ignored.

They’re pushing for treatment for other children,yet were planning to send care packages to parents with 1 sachet of coffee what use is that.

The couple are losing followers in the hundreds daily,cause they’re asked questions and are ignoring these people. These people helped to donate £1.5 million and all they can see is his fancy trainers,new cars.

I can’t imagine anyone would begrudge them a holiday or something after their child died but they need to be honest.I can’t imagine many would be angry that they’re not working so using the money for day to day expenses but to ignore/delete/ block people is wrong.

It's wild to me that people think a CEO for a large charity shouldn't be paid the wage of a CEO. Considering they'll already be paid a fraction of what they'd be paid in the private sector.

Big charities simply wouldn't be able to do the work they do or have the reach they have without full time work from people who have the skills required. In order to attract those people you need to pay them accordingly.

It just displays a real lack of critical thinking.

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.

But that's just underlining the point I was making. I don't really have an issue with something like a ball or a fete, where everybody knows the deal is to pay to have a good time yourself with a charity also benefitting; but I do when it's just a direct request for you to hand over money.

As if supporters were customers, yes. I don't see anything wrong with that.

We obviously disagree on that one. To me, a customer is very much an equal partner in a transaction with a known end, who will mutually benefit from it.

Just because you're content with what you have left after all of the costs of further fundraising doesn't change the fact that somebody has given that money for a purpose and, more often than not, it isn't made anywhere clear enough to them that, from the tenner they've given to help those in need, a sizeable proportion will be diverted towards efforts to encourage other people to give them a tenner too.

If charities are confident that this is good, honourable stewardship of donations - and I'm not saying that it isn't, necessarily - why do they always 'sell' what they will supposedly be doing with that donation based on the good cause itself and never volunteer the fact that some of it will be going to the cause but some of it will be put back into further fundraising?

It just makes me suspicious of their motives, in a way that may actually be unjusitified. Like how politicians always emphasise things like hospitals and education whenever they're trying to justify tax increases: it's invariably 'your money will pay for X more nurses and teachers' with never a whisper of Trident, dodgy contracts with their corporate mates, vanity projects, self-aggrandising willy-waving or military aggression. Presumably, they have enough confidence that the public acknowledge the need for these uses of money.... just not enough confidence to ever voluntarily mention it....

You’re surprised some charities only use a small amount of their donations on the actual good causes?

Macmillan Cancer Support: 73p charitable activities, 24.4p fundraising, and 2.6p generating income.

Alzheimer’s Research UK: 66.1p charitable activities, 33.9p fundraising, and 0p generating income.

Marie Curie: 63p charitable activities, 27.9p fundraising, and 9.1p generating income.

Cancer Research UK: 60.7p charitable activities, 24p on fundraising, and 15.3p generating income.

Guide Dogs: 56p charitable activities, 40.2p fundraising, and 3.8p generating income.

British Heart Foundation: 26.2p charitable activities, 40.6p fundraising, and 33.2p generating income.

It’s not unusual. People should research this stuff instead of just throwing money at whatever happens to be the charity du jour because someone manages to get themselves on BBC breakfast when the nation was locked in with nothing else to do.

The smaller local charities, run entirely by volunteers knocking their pan in trying to do the work and raise the money that goes directly to help people in need right now miss out on the billions donated because they can’t afford flashy marketing campaigns.

@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

Wholeheartedly agree. I think people imagine that fundraising is easy. It’s not.

But the money he raised was largely generated for free, he was walking around his garden with a zimmerframe and it was a go fund me people donated to. The resultant publicity wouldn't have been paid by the charity, they didn't really need expertise to be brought in as his daughter is an expert in this field- but surprise she paid herself a nice fat wedge of the money donated. Outrageous.

Like it or not, without his daughter’s expertise there is no way such a vast sum of money would have been raised. People don’t trawl giving sites looking for charities to donate to and journalist’s don’t go door knocking for heartwarming stories like this. They would have put in a hell of a lot of work to achieve the level of awareness they did. Why should they not be paid?

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

If charities are confident that this is good, honourable stewardship of donations - and I'm not saying that it isn't, necessarily - why do they always 'sell' what they will supposedly be doing with that donation based on the good cause itself and never volunteer the fact that some of it will be going to the cause but some of it will be put back into further fundraising?

Because charities contact supporters for two reasons - to raise money or to maintain the warm relationship that helps to support fundraising. It would be wasting money for charities to do otherwise.

A communication that said 'here's how we have spent your money on new office chairs because the old ones were giving our staff bad backs' will fulfil neither of these objectives, but it's still a worthwhile use of funds.

Politicians will be planning to spend money on about 60 different things, they can't campaign on all of them because people would turn off, so they prioritise the ones with the most support like health and schools. They might do targeted campaigns for specific communities like agricultural areas or military areas. It costs money to campaign, you only want to get out messages that drive support.

They would have put in a hell of a lot of work to achieve the level of awareness they did. Why should they not be paid?

She wouldn’t. She contacted the local media and tweeted about it. It then took off and she sat back and watched as it became a massive story in a media vacuum. I watched it unfold as it was covered in the local news, then it was taken up nationally, then celebrities got in on the act. There was a bit of effort at the beginning, that’s all.

Like it or not, without his daughter’s expertise there is no way such a vast sum of money would have been raised. People don’t trawl giving sites looking for charities to donate to and journalist’s don’t go door knocking for heartwarming stories like this. They would have put in a hell of a lot of work to achieve the level of awareness they did. Why should they not be paid?

I don't disagree entirely. However, she presented this as a daughter helping out her fathers fundraising. Not as a paid PR representative, doing their job.

My dad ran a marathon and I helped him fundraise, if I was doing that as a paid job but saying 'hey, sponsor my dad isn't he great', I would expect people to feel misled.

There's also an argument pointing out that CT wasn't paid for his time, so why should she?

Personally, I think as a PR exercise she proved she knows, mainly, what she is doing. I think she got a bit carried away but has dialled it back.

I can understand people feeling misled. They were sold 'old man doing something for charity supported by his dutiful daughter because they all want to give back during the pandemic. Just lovley generous people'

When actually it's was a business opportunity. It didn't take too much looking into to see it. But, I can see why people may feel misled.

The upshot is, that either he didn't realise that's what she was doing. Which makes it a bit sad. Or he did and went along with it all knowing the motivation was their business and (now it seems) their kids future TV careers. I don't condemn her. I just dont think she is an altruistic person and wouldnt have done it unless she did gain out of it. But I do see how people find it distasteful.

It's only here on MN I have seen his daughter slated. I've read threads saying she was exploiting him, etc, etc. As a pp rightly stated, without her input there's no way he'd have raised as much. From what I saw he had all his marbles and the last year of his life saw him do things he appeared to be enjoying.

Not sure whether it's been mentioned, but his daughter's foundation has nearly £700k in reserves so it's not as if the money has disappeared.

If you want someone half decent to head up a charity, you need to pay commensurate to what that person would earn outwith the third sector. Otherwise you will only get cronies who can afford to work for less than they are worth. Look at unpaid internships, politics etc if you want to see how this works.

It's only here on MN I have seen his daughter slated. I've read threads saying she was exploiting him, etc, etc.

She was slated all over Twitter right from the beginning too. I’ve never liked her. I think Captain Tom was exploited by the family.

Because charities contact supporters for two reasons - to raise money or to maintain the warm relationship that helps to support fundraising. It would be wasting money for charities to do otherwise.

Charities spend a fortune on leaflets and mail drops. Why not just include the information there? Every charity could put it on their website.

Just looked at CTF website. There is an “FAQ” about how much goes to charity. The answer says after their first year they will put their audited accounts on the website. What would be May 2021. If the accounts are there, I can’t find them.

They would have put in a hell of a lot of work to achieve the level of awareness they did. Why should they not be paid?

If it’s really not a problem, why has it taken 2 years for that to become public knowledge?

40k given to good causes, but £210k in costs?

16k spent on “security, accommodation and transport” for taking him around the country to promote the charity. Given his age, I can’t imagine he was galavanting that much in his last few months. Where did that money go?

@CallMeNutribullet

It's wild to me that people think a CEO for a large charity shouldn't be paid the wage of a CEO. Considering they'll already be paid a fraction of what they'd be paid in the private sector.

Big charities simply wouldn't be able to do the work they do or have the reach they have without full time work from people who have the skills required. In order to attract those people you need to pay them accordingly.

It just displays a real lack of critical thinking.

Exactly this. Relative of mine is at that level in charity sector, can afford to be and could be in commercial sector for 3x the basic salary. It’s also often brushed over that large charities headed by CEO, sustain small grassroots charities with funding and grants. Anyone who says, ‘I only give to my local shop/foodbank’ in a boycott of the big salaried charities, is obviously unaware how they (local charities, e.g. a hospice/children’s hospice) can often only function with grants and supported volunteers (who can afford to give their time on No pay or expenses-only basis).

@BoodleBug51

My cousin works for a large well known local charity that gets a lot of national coverage as it's very niche.

I've never given them a penny after seeing what he gets "on the firm".

I now only support small local charities as a result.

Small and local are not necessarily better. When I had my first baby I was part of a baby group. One woman went on to have two more children in quick succession and had them all in private school from nursery age. Her husband worked for the charity his family set up. She did some very part time work there too. She implied a little admin. Turned out she was down as the finance director being paid just shy of a 6 figure salary. She wasn't an accountant and her qualifications completely unrelated - she would not get her an interview in any other finance job outside this family 'business' charities are the last place you should get away with nepotism.

Best to always take any money you want for charity to your local area (e.g buy products for food bank, ask local homeless shelter what you could purchase them etc).

Charities are businesses, many of them bloated, profligate and nowhere near as effective as they should be, given their level of funding. The fact that private schools and private hospital networks are allowed to call themselves charities and benefit from that status just demonstrates what a racket it all is.

It doesn’t surprise me at all that a posh, wealthy businesswoman has taken the opportunity to benefit personally from her involvement in one.

The audited CTF accounts and Trustees Annual Report are available to download from the Charity Commission website.

10% She/the organisation took 10% of the monies raised as commission.

Where I work we take more than that for our marketing/PR costs - and they are highly limited given the nature of the charity. We mainly market ourselves directly to other statutory and charitable organisations.

If that is the top and bottom of it then I have no idea what is being moaned about.

And no. Nobody here gets paid large sums of money.

@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).

Thats interesting -

My DM had some issues with her property and said "no one in the village helped me" I asked how much she had done for the village - nothing (not the same village)

@SamphiretheStickerist

10% She/the organisation took 10% of the monies raised as commission.

Where I work we take more than that for our marketing/PR costs - and they are highly limited given the nature of the charity. We mainly market ourselves directly to other statutory and charitable organisations.

If that is the top and bottom of it then I have no idea what is being moaned about.

And no. Nobody here gets paid large sums of money.

So you work for a charity whose charity work is doing PR for other charities, which you charge more than 10% of what the client charity makes?

Huh? I didn't make it clear did I?

No, I work for a group of community charities, inlcuding a food bank and DV refuge. I do a lot of work on funding and often have various facts and figures supplied as part of our funding bids.

One of those figures is that we use c.10% of all monies raised on marketing ourselves, PR, to the other organisations that we work or would like to work with. For obvious reasons we don't use social media, public statements for some of what we do so our expenditure is lower than I expect many other organisations have.

The daughter was always very commercially minded and the marketing mastermind behind the whole show. Clearly they will milk his legacy for the next couple of decades and top up the family coffers.

The fund has currently paid out almost the same in fees to the family for 'management' as it has actually made charitable donations. Hundreds of thousands sits in the bank doing nothing.

Wonder what the rest of the family think of it, I believe he had at least another daughter who was not involved in the whole media spectacle.

one-tenth of its income went on fundraising consultancy fees, including to a firm run by Captain Tom’s daughter

As it ever was.

This is why I give to big charities not tiny ones. More efficient.

Try volunteering for one of these big charities. I used to volunteer for the biggest cat charity. When we weren't doing stuff for the cats we were constantly out promoting for our bazaars, shaking tins in the high street, because the money we got from the charity didn't even cover 50% of the annual vet bills, let alone the costs of housing and feeding the animals. Then one day we got invited to HQ for a day. So many luxury cars parked outside...

If you are leaving bequests to charities in your will make it a monetary amount and not a percentage, or your loved ones will be hounded mercilessly until the charity gets "their" money. A lot of your donations go to their squads of widow/widower chasing lawyers.