A charity that supports a number of projects promoting peace and stability in the Middle East had received adverse publicity. An article in a national Sunday newspaper had reported that the charity was spending a disproportionate amount of its costs on its London premises and staff was under investigation by the Charity Commission. The charity receives its income from a small number of wealthy individual, most of whom are approached socially by the trustees who also make substantial donations to the charity and are themselves high-profile individuals. The main concern of the trustees was the impact this might have on other charities that the trust works with in order to achieve its goals.
The article was based upon an analysis of the charity’s accounts, which were available from the Charity Commission website. After consultation with the trust’s management, we performed a detailed review of the accounts to ascertain how the charity’s expenditure had been classified and how it related to the activities undertaken by the charity.
This revealed that a number of staff who were involved in the charity’s activities were classified as support costs rather than direct costs. The grants given by the charity were only approved after a strict vetting process. After approval the staff monitoring the project often became advocates for it, encouraging other charities to become involved and even assisting with the operational and strategic management of them. This element had not been properly recognised in the previous year’s accounts.
As a result of this a prior year adjustment was made for the cost allocation in the accounts. We also liaised with the trust’s management to draft a detailed description of the activities undertaken by the charity’s staff and their impact in reaching its objectives. Also the Charity Commission investigation has been closed with no adverse finding against the trust as a result of the responses prepared by the trust’s management after consultation with us
If you would like to speak with our Charity & Not for Profit Group about publicity in national media, please contact us.