If you donated to a good cause, would you be happy if most of your money went into the pockets of profit-making fundraising companies?
That’s what is happening at Childlife, a consortium that raises cash for four charities – National Deaf Children’s Society, National Children’s Bureau, Acorns Children’s Hospice Trust and Ataxia UK.
Last financial year Childlife gave £320,000 to the four charities but paid £784,035 to four fundraising firms.
When wages, office expenses and other costs are factored in, total spending on non-charitable work came to £935,028. Put another way, barely one quarter of all spending actually goes to the good causes.
The fundraising firms include Gather Campaigns Ltd, formerly called Personal Fundraising Services Ltd, which recruited 2,100 donors.
Wilko announces huge change from today as it stops selling Lottery tickets
It is owned by the giant Credico Holdings Ltd, which says it wants the public “to feel confident in proceeding with their donations” and is doing very nicely out of this business, judging by the latest accounts showing a gross profit of £46.6million.
Childlife is run by Andrea Rimington, who said it has been “extremely successful” in raising money for the charities it supports but recently its donor numbers have been in decline.
“As we are in a period of increased investment to ensure long-term viability, the figures will, in the short term, show fundraising costs at a higher proportion of our total costs,” she said.
“In the longer term we will expect to be in a position where the proportion received by the member charities will be higher than the investment.”
Charity blogger Dr Alex May responded: “The unreasonable fundraising costs haven’t just begun. Rather, they have persisted over the last five years.”
investigate@mirror.co.uk
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
