Corruption in charities

suicide_circus · 10-04-2021 11:33am

The Irish charity and NGO industry is one of the biggest rackets going.

YellowLead · 10-04-2021 11:36am

Eric Cartman wrote: »

They handed them to an accounting firm and in many cases are publicly available anyway.

Fair enough on the accountancy firm.
But the ones large enough to already have their annual accounts published are hardly looking for some free audit. They already get audited! It just sounds odd.

Eric Cartman · 10-04-2021 11:39am

YellowLead wrote: »

Fair enough on the accountancy firm.
But the ones large enough to already have their annual accounts published are hardly looking for some free audit. They already get audited! It just sounds odd.

The free audit wasnt really for them, it was to verify the free certification basically, charities love being rubber stamped by things that make them look good, just in this case asking them to spend half their donations on the thing that theyre supposed to help seems to be asking too much

YellowLead · 10-04-2021 11:57am

Eric Cartman wrote: »

The free audit wasnt really for them, it was to verify the free certification basically, charities love being rubber stamped by things that make them look good, just in this case asking them to spend half their donations on the thing that theyre supposed to help seems to be asking too much

As you said, most have published audited accounts so people can check for themselves. I cant imagine a charity looking for certification by anything other than charities regulator or something verified, as opposed to a college project

None of the charities I give to fall into your bronze category - they would all be large charities. I guess the ones who said yes to your audit were the poorly run ones who don’t have the sense to know when it’s a made up certification

anewme · 10-04-2021 12:01pm

YellowLead wrote: »

And of course no business or charity is going to hand over their accounts to a bunch of students!!!

I'd say that's the real issue here.

Bellbottoms · 10-04-2021 12:11pm

YellowLead wrote: »

As if anybody would say that. This is made up. And of course no business or charity is going to hand over their accounts to a bunch of students!!!

I believe their is a requirement to release them publicly every year.

AndrewJRenko · 10-04-2021 12:37pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I have often wondered if it might be more cost effective to have charities run totally by government departments. Say Environment take control of all the housing charities under one central office, thereby cutting down drastically on the repetition of admin, etc.
An expanded mental health department under health, etc.
Rather than going out begging/fundraising, just raise income tax and VAT by 1/2%
I’m a great believer in the saying that charity begins at home. Local charities tend to be run totally by volunteers and are more transparent. One larger one that comes to mind in one called Build4Life Cystic Fibrosis. It was set up to raise funds for dedicated cystic fibrosis units in University Hospital Cork. When it reached its target, it disbanded. No big office. No overpaid CEO.

Great, so will all the charity staff get public sector wages and pensions too then, like all the other employees under the control of govt depts?

The better option is just to expand public services, and stop funding charities to provide services that should be basic human rights, like mental health and child welfare and disability services. Pay people properly to do professional work.

It's awful simplistic to say that small charities are more effective that large ones. Some large charities do amazing work all round the country for many years.

Bellbottoms wrote: »

If anyone wants to look into it. A certain Dublin councillor runs a charity employing one unnamed employee. Said employees salary is not listed on their annual report.

Not suggesting that anything fishy is going on. But I find it odd, that it's not listed.

You'll have to be a bit more open if you want people to look into it. Basic details of all charities are available on the Regulator's website, if you wanted to point to any existing public domain information.

riffmongous wrote: »

I disagree here, when I volunteered at two of the largest charities (in Austria) the number of volunteers was far greater than the paid staff. Now maybe the paid staff do more hours in total but still, we were talking 15000/8000 staff and 50000/75000 volunteers, who is going to pay for them? Especially when the ambulance services would need to be paid competitively to compare with professional services.

I was talking about Ireland. There are very, very few Irish charities of any significance with more volunteers than paid staff - SVP, probably some of the voluntary first aid organisations, scouts, GAA - but not charities that are significant service providers in disability services, homeless services, drug services etc.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

They handed them to an accounting firm and in many cases are publicly available anyway.

So why didn't you just audit them based on the publicly available accounts?

Eric Cartman wrote: »

When I was in college a charity scandal hit, myself and a friend tried to overcome the issue with a private organisation, we had an accountants firm specialising in auditing onboard, pur deal basically was we gave awards on 3 levels, bronze, silver and gold.

Bronze basically meant that 50% of donations made it to whatever concern you were donating to

Silver was 50% went to the concern and that the CEO’s salary & expenses was under 10% of total take

Gold was 70% of donations made it to the actual cause, CEO and all the high level execs combined salaries made up less than 15% of the entire take.

We talked to about 150 charities, over 100 point blank refused a free audit and certification, of the ones that allowed us audit most failed, id say abour 15 met the criteria for bronze , 0 silver or gold, of those that met the criteria for bronze a few asked that the gold and silver levels be scrapped so they had nothing to ‘work up to’

We scrapped the whole project , the lesson we learned is that the closest to ‘reputable’ charities are usually based around helping animals domestically and even then getting 50% of the money to truly help whatever cause is a struggle.

Needless to say I havent donated to anyone since

"donations made it to the actual cause" is a meaningless metric. Is the salary of the webmaster part of the 'actual cause'? Or the salary of the HR person that recruits staff? Or the salary of the CEO indeed? How do you measure 'made it to the actual cause'?

corner of hells · 10-04-2021 12:43pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I have often wondered if it might be more cost effective to have charities run totally by government departments. Say Environment take control of all the housing charities under one central office, thereby cutting down drastically on the repetition of admin, etc.
An expanded mental health department under health, etc.
Rather than going out begging/fundraising, just raise income tax and VAT by 1/2%
I’m a great believer in the saying that charity begins at home. Local charities tend to be run totally by volunteers and are more transparent. One larger one that comes to mind in one called Build4Life Cystic Fibrosis. It was set up to raise funds for dedicated cystic fibrosis units in University Hospital Cork. When it reached its target, it disbanded. No big office. No overpaid CEO.

The state does it up to a point , a significant number of homeless accommodation is run by charities for DCC for example.
Placements in most hostels are made by the Central Placement Service , allocation of beds all done by state.
HSE are responsiblefor primary healthcare in homeless services, a lot of state funding is provided on the basis of reaching KPIs and various targets , as an individual im accountable for what I do , so it is transparent to a degree , most larger hospitals including maternity all have nurse and social workers dedicated to working with homeless individuals.

corner of hells · 10-04-2021 12:46pm

Bellbottoms wrote: »

If anyone wants to look into it. A certain Dublin councillor runs a charity employing one unnamed employee. Said employees salary is not listed on their annual report.

Not suggesting that anything fishy is going on. But I find it odd, that it's not listed.

If you are ever unlucky enough to meet that muppet , ask him about his expenses.

corner of hells · 10-04-2021 12:50pm

suicide_circus wrote: »

The Irish charity and NGO industry is one of the biggest rackets going.

Absolutely, im posting from my penthouse over looking the Sydney Opera House.

anewme · 10-04-2021 12:51pm

corner of hells wrote: »

If you are ever unlucky enough to meet that muppet , ask him about his expenses.

I knew straight away which charity it was.

AndrewJRenko · 10-04-2021 12:51pm

corner of hells wrote: »

If you are ever unlucky enough to meet that muppet , ask him about his expenses.

His Council expenses are all published on the Council website.

corner of hells · 10-04-2021 12:55pm

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

His Council expenses are all published on the Council website.

Not his council expenses, from his charity.

suicide_circus · 10-04-2021 1:02pm

corner of hells wrote: »

Absolutely, im posting from my penthouse over looking the Sydney Opera House.

Obviously i'm not aiming that comment at the genuine staff like yourself but you have to admit the sector is unbelievably bloated and ripe for fiddling.

AndrewJRenko · 10-04-2021 1:04pm

corner of hells wrote: »

Not his council expenses, from his charity.

Are these not available in the charity's published accounts?

dhaughton99 · 10-04-2021 1:04pm

One of the positives out of Covid is no more chuggers hassling the public.

Bellbottoms · 10-04-2021 1:16pm

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Are these not available in the charity's published accounts?

I had a look and they are not jumping out at me. But I don't know much about accounting or how to read accounts. It's all Greek to me.

Take a look yourself.

AndrewJRenko · 10-04-2021 2:50pm

Bellbottoms wrote: »

I had a look and they are not jumping out at me. But I don't know much about accounting or how to read accounts. It's all Greek to me.

Take a look yourself.

Here's what I can see;

- The Councillor is no longer a Director of the company, but is still a Trustee [I don't think a Trustee can also be an employee of the charity, but I'm not certain about this].
- They report 3 employees for 2019 in the Charity Regulator submission
- They have a fairly substantial operation, a warehouse and substantial volunteer activities - all with 3 employees
- Total income is just under half a million, all from donations, no government grants or contracts
- David Hall is also a trustee. I don't like the guy, but he did excellent work on the Console charity after their CEO ripped them off, so I'd doubt that he'd be attached to anything dodgy.

I'm not really seeing any concern here. If anyone has specifics, they should be taking them to the Charity Regulator or SIPO (if it relates to his political role) or both. Not really fair to be spreading rumours.

10-04-2021 3:02pm

I find it amusing that many people look down their noses in moral superiority at charities not giving 70, 80, 90% or whatever of donations directly to the "cause" and use this as a justification for giving nothing to any charity, meaning that instead of the needy getting 60 cent or whatever of every euro, they get zero.

Personally SVP are my favorite Ireland focused charity.

tayto lover · 10-04-2021 3:41pm

Your local Lions Club are all volunteers and any money raised is given to good local causes which are checked out fully. No paid employees and volunteers pay for their own petrol and other expenses.

PeadarCo · 11-04-2021 7:02am

Kareem Unsightly Vegetation wrote: »

I find it amusing that many people look down their noses in moral superiority at charities not giving 70, 80, 90% or whatever of donations directly to the "cause" and use this as a justification for giving nothing to any charity, meaning that instead of the needy getting 60 cent or whatever of every euro, they get zero.

Personally SVP are my favorite Ireland focused charity.

Well its worse than that. The idea that charities shouldn't employee full time staff especially administration is why you get fraud occurring. Once you get beyond a certain size you need full time HR, accountancy, IT support etc etc. If you skimp on these areas you end up with poorly qualified staff doing important roles which leads to fraud. Ie poorly trained/qualified finance staff may not be aware of the standard financial controls and how to implement them, similar with HR etc.

If you want 100% of money to go to the "cause" all you are doing is limiting what a charity can do. You can't run any remotely sizeable organisation with volunteers doing all the admin(ie doing all the work in the evenings/at weekends) especially if you want qualified personnel in key positions.

ThunbergsAreGo · 11-04-2021 8:20am

kildare lad wrote: »

I think there's something like 10,000 registered charities in Ireland , that's a huge number for a country the size of Ireland .

One of the main reasons I don't as well. Too many fingers in the pie, unless I know exactly where its spent in not donating.

There is probably a worker in a homeless charity for each legit homeless person in Ireland. Its an industry.

Jim2007 · 11-04-2021 8:25am

Zebra3 wrote: »

Charity is failure of government.

So ultimately it's your failure since you elect the TDs....

zerosugarbuzz · 11-04-2021 8:44am

Kareem Unsightly Vegetation wrote: »

I find it amusing that many people look down their noses in moral superiority at charities not giving 70, 80, 90% or whatever of donations directly to the "cause" and use this as a justification for giving nothing to any charity, meaning that instead of the needy getting 60 cent or whatever of every euro, they get zero.

Personally SVP are my favorite Ireland focused charity.

It’s the ones that are spending circa 70% plus on expenses and running costs that irk me. There are regular reports about the disgraceful job the Catholic Church did with regard to mother and baby homes in the past. But no comment about the fact that the Catholic Church run the main charities associated with homelessness and drug addiction in the present day. Can’t seem to put 2 and 2 together.

Jim2007 · 11-04-2021 8:59am

gmisk wrote: »

Is it just me or are there an increasing number or charities that are notifying the gardai etc of pretty horrendous fraud?
Is there a lack of decent controls and oversight in this sector?

Bothar is the latest one in a lot of bother...

Charity Bóthar claims ex-CEO misappropriated hundreds of thousands of euro worth of donations https://jrnl.ie/5404560

First of all the entire reason we put controls and division of duties in place is because we know and expect that people are prone to abuse their position of power, that is just life. If we're not hearing of people been caught, we should be concerned because it just means the system is not working.

The second thing is that putting all of these controls in place cost money and that puts charities in a difficult position since as soon as they start spending heavily on controls, they get hammered for not spending their money on their objective.

The good news is that the MLA and the move away from physical cash makes it much easier and cheaper to catch these people. No cash means that electronic records are created and electronic records are easy and cheap to analyses.

I see it as a positive sign, we are finally in a position to bring more and more of these people to account.

JustAThought · 11-04-2021 9:11am

I fundraised for Barretstown a few years ago. Lovely people to deal with and such a valuable and worthwhile, lifechanging service. All ghe doctors and nurses that give their time there for the childrens camps are unpaid volunteers - as are the camp helpers.

The OPW have set the rent on the castle and grounds at something like e1 (one euro) a year.
Few years ago they built a fabulous new wheelchaIr accessible childrens restaurant area from a single donation that was in excess of million euro.

BUT -I was horrified to read that the CEO sits on the board AND on the specific COMMITTEE that decides her own salary - ‘but goes out of the room when it is discussed’. A totally unethical situation. Also on this committee is someone - a staff member - who reports up to her and who she also decides their salary. Currently - last time I looked - she is on a six figure annual salary of 136,000 PLUS a ‘petrol’ allowance of circa 12k.
I cannot get this out of my head - when you see the effort people make to get in a few hundred euro for the children and you then realise that most of this is just petrol money for the CEO and the next 136,000 raised will also be handed to her.

They get no funding at all from the govt for salaries.

It’s shocking when you scratch the surface - the CEO has no medical background. I am sure there are plenty of other competent charity managers/CEO’s that would also do a good job in this role - and for less than 148,000 PER ANNUM of the childrens cancer money.

Cal4567 · 11-04-2021 9:55am

seamus wrote: »

As it is I'm now by default suspicious of any business person who takes a position as an executive in a charity. I assume they're a sociopath who's on the take, not some philanthropist looking to do good in the world.

I suspect also it's a bit of being seen to take on a volunteer position as it looks great on a CV and for some its a nice entry card for a well paid position down the line with a semi state or even a fully private organisation. Some of us do have these plans when it comes to career progression.

YellowLead · 11-04-2021 9:58am

The Barretstown CEO has made HUGE changes to bring efficiencies because of her experience. They can now serve many more campers then they ever could before at a massively reduced rate per child. If she was a medical professional she would not have the business experience to do so.
She is earning WAY less than she would be if working in the corporate world.
In addition- she works basically all day and all weekend long. If she was actually paid for the hours she puts in overtime it would be a lot more.

Cal4567 · 11-04-2021 10:12am

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Here's what I can see;

- The Councillor is no longer a Director of the company, but is still a Trustee [I don't think a Trustee can also be an employee of the charity, but I'm not certain about this].
- They report 3 employees for 2019 in the Charity Regulator submission
- They have a fairly substantial operation, a warehouse and substantial volunteer activities - all with 3 employees
- Total income is just under half a million, all from donations, no government grants or contracts
- David Hall is also a trustee. I don't like the guy, but he did excellent work on the Console charity after their CEO ripped them off, so I'd doubt that he'd be attached to anything dodgy.

I'm not really seeing any concern here. If anyone has specifics, they should be taking them to the Charity Regulator or SIPO (if it relates to his political role) or both. Not really fair to be spreading rumours.

Now I know said charity will say they are doing great work etc, I'm sure they do, but this is another example of the overlap that's out there. They turn up out of the blue when there is already a number of existing charities doing this work. Is this the most efficient way to do things? No.

We are also in the early days of charities regulation, the authority was only put in place in 2014. I'd say they've been fairly busy since dealing with the vast number of charities we have, which for a country of our size appears bonkers. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more of these stories from now on.

Tec Diver · 11-04-2021 10:37am

As many of you have eluded to, not all charities are run by scumbags who would rob from the vulnerable in our society.
I'm a director of a charity (which I won't name). We have two paid staff, with all the directors being volunteers, who don't get any renumeration or expenses. At every board meeting (bi-monthly) we go over all of our finances and we are all free to question any expenses, fees etc. If a charity isn't open and transparent about it's finances or accounts, then I would not support it! There has to be a strong framework of governance in place. This includes a fixed term for directors, usually three years, before they are replaced.

Hope this helps.

Corruption in charities

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