The “Charitable Foundation” scam – how to siphon off public money into private hands

The “Charitable Foundation” scam – how to siphon off public money into private hands

Army veteran Captain Tom Moore became a national treasure in 2020, when he walked 100 laps of his garden for charity, and raised £33 million pounds in the process which went to the NHS.

Sadly he died last year at the age of 100 after being admitted to hospital with pneumonia and subsequently ‘contracted Covid-19’.

Prior to this, after the £33m raised through a JustGiving page was distributed by NHS Charities Together, his family set up a new charity in his name, the “Captain Tom Foundation”.

It seems however that some ‘irregularities’ in the accounts have drawn the attention of the Charity Commission.

BBC News reported the following on 10th February 2022:

Capt Sir Tom Moore: Watchdog to review charity’s accounts

The Charity Commission says it is to review the accounts of the charity set up in honour of Capt Sir Tom Moore.

Grants of £160,000 were given to four charities by the Captain Tom Foundation which paid more than £162,000 in management costs in its first year.

According to the published accounts, covering the charity’s first year from 5 May 2020 to 31 May 2021, it paid out grants to four charities worth £40,000 each but spent £209,433 on support costs including £162,336 on “management”.

The financial statement also showed reimbursement costs of £16,097 paid to Club Nook Limited, a company run by Hannah Ingram-Moore, Capt Sir Tom’s daughter.

These costs were for accommodation, security and transport relating to Capt Sir Tom “travelling around the UK to promote the charitable company”.

Payments of £37,942 were also made to Maytrix Group Limited, a company run by Ms Ingram-Moore and her husband, relating to photography, office rental, telephone and third-party consultancy costs.

“These costs were initially funded by Maytrix Group Limited on behalf of the charitable company, and reimbursed when sufficient funds were available,” the financial statement said.

Expense payments of £1,686 were also made to Ms Ingram-Moore to cover “motor, post, subscription and travel costs”.

Capt Sir Tom Moore: Watchdog to review charity’s accounts – BBC News, February 10th 2022

While the Charity Commission is in the process of reviewing their accounts, there is no accusation of any “wrong-doing” at this time.

But lets be honest, it does look a bit dubious and “uncharitable” for a charity set up by Ms Ingram-Moore and her husband, to then receive donations, and then to make expense claims for private companies also run by the same people who set up this charity.

It would seem ‘on the surface’ that this is a nice way to siphon off (or more appropriately “leech”) money raised through ‘charitable donations’.

In a way, its a form of stealing really.

Granted the foundation did pay out grants of £40,000 to four charities, but then again it would be interesting to know which charities these were and how these grants were used.

Anyway, there was a further revelation revealed by the Independent on Friday…

Captain Tom charity ‘tried to appoint daughter as CEO on six-figure salary’

Now The Independent has been told that part of the watchdog’s case related to a request from the foundation to appoint Hannah Ingram-Moore as its CEO on a salary worth about a tenth of its total first-year income.

It is understood that the charity – established in May 2020 after the former army officer raised £39m for NHS charities – wanted to pay her in the region of £150,000 for the role. The figure represents 13.68 per cent of the charity’s total first-year income.

It is understood that the proposal to hand her the role was made by trustees without a recruitment campaign or competition.

A salary of £150,000 would be comparable to the RSPCA, which was recorded as paying its top earner £150,007, according to a list of the 100 highest-paying charities produced last year by industry publication Third Sector which placed it 98th. The animal charity’s annual income was recorded as £142m – more than 100 times that of the Captain Tom Foundation.

Ms Ingram-Moore, who has spoken about setting up the foundation, was appointed a trustee of the charity on 1 February 2021 but resigned on 15 March, according to accounts. Her husband, Colin, was appointed a trustee on the same date and remains in post as the family’s representative.

Ms Ingram-Moore’s personal website – which describes her as “one of Britain’s leading business women” – listed her as “founder and CEO” of the Captain Tom Foundation but this was changed after The Independent approached the charity for comment to “founder and interim CEO”. Ms Ingram-Moore’s Linkedin profile says she is the “voice of the Captain Tom Foundation”.

A document dated December 2021 outlines an “appointment brief” for CEO – with a “welcome letter” from interim CEO Ms Ingram-Moore – at a listed salary of £55,000 to £60,000.

Accounts for the charity published earlier this month reveal that £54,039 has been paid to two companies run by Mr and Ms Ingram-Moore. They also show that £162,336 was spent on management costs – more than was given out in donations to Mind, the Royal British Legion, children’s charity Helen & Douglas House and palliative care charity Willen Hospice.

Captain Tom charity ‘tried to appoint daughter as CEO on six-figure salary’ – Independent on MSN, 21st February 2022

OK, so we’re moving on from ‘dubious and uncharitable’ to blatant “taking the piss” here.

I’ve been sceptical about many ‘big charities’ and especially so called charitable trusts and foundations for some time now.

“Big Charities” seem to be run very much like corporate companies, with well-paid ‘executive officers’ and ‘management teams’. The difference though is that a charity’s income comes from public donations, or via grants from other charitable foundations/trusts, or even from central government funds.

People who work in charity shops, or stand on street corners or go door-to-door asking for donations, are unpaid volunteers – they do what they do for free because they believe in the cause they are volunteering for.

Now of course your ‘big charities’ that deal with millions of pounds a year in donations, as well as having substantial operations in place to support that charity and ensure that funds are used appropriately, probably do require some level of management to run them, and that would seem fair enough.

But then again on the other hand, it would seem to me that many so-called charities are being set up in a way that they just become vehicles to ‘launder’ and siphon off public money into the pockets of private individuals and companies.

And ‘hedge funds’. Rather than distributing collected donations and giving them to the causes that the charity represents, the funds get ‘invested’ in hedge funds. I bet most people have forgotten about the BBC Panorama investigation into Comic Relief from 2013?

But going back to the point of this article, a charity was set up in the name of Captain Tom Moore by his daughter and son-in-law, and this charity tried to appoint the daughter as CEO on a hefty salary worth nearly 10% of its income.

Good work if you can get it.

I have written here before about Common Purpose, and this to me seems like one of their money-laundering/siphoning schemes. Don’t forget too, that these charities and foundations/trusts also operate ‘tax-free’, so they can also be a useful way to move money around, lets say you have a private company that somehow ‘wins’ a contract to provide ‘services’ to a charity that you have also set up yourself.

To conclude

While I believe that many “big charities” and charitable foundations/trusts have been set up in order to scam the public out of their own hard-earned money in order to line the pockets of greedy individuals who know how to ‘play the system’, I do still believe there are a great many smaller local charities that would be far more appreciative of a donation, so please don’t be put off by this, just be a little more discerning about who you give your money to.

Caveat

I do not intend this article to be any kind of slur against Captain Sir Tom Moore himself, I do not believe he was any ‘willing accomplice’ in all of this, and I think he may have originally set out to do what he did all in good faith. May he rest in peace, and shame on his family for exploiting him and his memory for personal financial gain, if that truly turns out to be the case here.

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