Cases of aggressive and illegal marketing by charities have dominated recent news media, including the pages of specialist marketing magazine Decision Marketing.

On May 6th the body of Olive Cooke, the UK’s oldest poppy seller at 92, was found in Avon Gorge, Bristol. She was thought to have committed suicide whilst being in ill-health and depressed. However it has emerged that she had been plagued by phone and post by hundreds of different charities. Cooke told the Bristol Post last November “I have always donated to charities but as I am getting older I have been told I need to start cutting back” She then revealed that she got up to six mailings a day from charities, and “more because Christmas is coming” and added “I think the elderly are targeted with this sort of mail on purpose, as charities think they have lots of disposable money, or they might have donated in the past, but receiving so much is overwhelming”. Continue reading →

A donation of £3 million of her £10 million bonus to charity by Harriet Green, former CEO of Thomas Cook, has been described as an “abhorrent attempt to gain public sympathy”.

This is the view of the mother whose two children were killed in Corfu by carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty water heater at a hotel recommended and booked for them by the tour operator. A recent inquest heard that Thomas Cook accepted without checking the statement by the hotel that there were no gas-fuelled water heaters there, an approach that prompted a recent inquest to find that the tour operator had failed in its duty of care towards its customers.

Meanwhile some MP’s are donating to charity pay rises that they don’t believe they are entitled to take.

Faced with having to accept the 10% pay rise given to all MPs by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, a figure that PM David Cameron has said he will pocket, Education Secretary Nicky Morgan, along with Labour ministers Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper have all said they will give theirs to charity.

Seventeen aid workers for charity International Rescue Committee (IRC) have been expelled by separatists from the Ukranian city of Donetsk, accused of spying on rebel operations there.

The aid workers were a team sent to Donetsk in April by IRC president and former British Foreign Secretary David Milliband, to focus on the hygiene and safety needs of women and young girls affected by the conflict.

Tightening up on money laundering has caused some banks to pull out of emerging markets, this then making it difficult for charities to send money to those countries affected.

Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney has explained that some of those banks caught providing accounts and services to money launderers have chosen to dump the region, or the line of business altogether, to avoid further punishments.

Singer Sir Elton John has topped a list of those giving up a generous proportion of their wealth for charitable causes, having donated £24.1 million, equating to 8.92% of his total wealth.

Others from the world of music in the charitable top ten are bands Coldplay at number five, giving 1.82%/ £3.8 million, and One Direction at number seven, giving 0.92% /£1.2 million, Eric Clapton at number eight, giving 0.88%/ £1.4 million, and Dhani Harisson, musical son of Beatle George Harrison, and George’s widow, film producer and author Olivia, who with Dhani gave 0.55%/ £1.1 million for the number ten slot. Continue reading →

One of a number of allegations made against members and past members of the Fiddles in Football Association (Fifa) is that former Fifa vice president Jack Warner diverted almost £500,000 intended for victims of the Haiti earthquake into bank accounts controlled by, er, himself.

Warner, 72, who faces extradition from Trinidad to the USA to answer a number of charges of corruption and money laundering, claims to have “an avalanche of secrets” about the misconduct of others at the disgraced football body, including its outgoing president Sett Blatter.