War veterans charity spent just two percent of income on grants for military heroes: Your Comments please.
Tommy Watson
Director of Veterans Affairs at Walking With The Wounded | Veteran , NHS OP Courage ** 30,454 Followers**; Clore Experienced Leader ???
A charity set up to help British veterans spent just two percent of its income on providing grants to war heroes, the charities watchdog has found.
Our Local Heroes Foundation was set up to help relieve financial hardship for people who have served in the armed forces, but a Charity Commission investigation found it had “a very low level of charity expenditure”.
While claiming to be “all about making a difference” and delivering services “with military precision”, only ￡10,000 of the charity’s ￡500,000 income in 2015 was used to provide grants to veterans, with the rest being spent on operating costs and other projects beyond its stated aims.
The charity had eight employees and a wage and office bill of ￡155,000 per year.
It also had a fundraising agreement with a company that took up to 80 percent of the money they raised, the watchdog said.
The Charity Commission said the way the charity operated “was not acceptable” and its reputation could be damaged if the ratio of income to charitable expenditure remained so low.
Researcher in Command, Combat, and Psychological Trauma I Organisational Psychologist
8 年There are a number of charities that I would question their 'ethics' ... I sense that a number of charities main purpose is pay the salaries of directors....Furthermore, the marketing machines of some charities 'overtake' what they actually deliver ...
Procurement Professional, interim (bi-lingual English-German)
8 年"It's reputation could be damaged" ... is that all? Surely, if they operate outside their stated aims, there ought to be consequences??? A third party taking 80% of donations??? Why do they need such a disproportionate staff base??? We mustn't be too idealistic. Charities need money to simply operate. They can't all solely rely on volunteers. Smaller charities raising fewer funds will have proportionately higher expenses in comparison. (But I seem to remember that even H4H had bad press about their expenditure.) The obvious answer seems more regulation - but who would want to monitor it all ....? More transparency would be a good start - then the donors could make a more informed decision.