Muslim Aid pays Fundraising Regulator levy

19 Jul 2017 News

Muslim Aid has paid the Fundraising Regulator’s levy, after being indentified by Civil Society News last week as one of the four largest non-payers - but two others on the same list have not.

The Fundraising Regulator is funded by a levy on all charities spending more than £100,000 on fundraising, according to the Charity Commission annual return. The regulator launched its public register of those that have paid the levy last week and Civil Society News identified four large fundraising charities which appeared not to have paid - Muslim Aid, Harrow School, Vodafone Foundation, and the Ummah Welfare Trust.

These charities are all in the top 100 charities by fundraising income, according to a list published by Fundraising Magazine in 2017, and are all listed on the Charity Commission's website as having a spend of more than £100,000 on raising funds. The Fundraising Regulator said it was still in discussions with all four.

Muslim Aid says it has now paid the levy. A spokeswoman for Muslim Aid said: "Muslim Aid would like to confirm that we paid the fundraising levy to the Fundraising Regulator last week. We regret the late payment of the levy. 

"We have been in touch with the Fundraising Regulator who have given us the name of the person they emailed with the original invoice. This person is no longer with our organization so we cannot say if the invoice was filtered out as spam or if it was misplaced within our organisation.  

"What we can confirm is that it was not received by our finance team as all invoices they receive are logged on receipt. The Fundraising Regulator say they sent a hard copy of the invoice five months later in March but, again, we do not know if it was properly addressed and received as there is no record of receipt of the invoice in our Finance Department. 

"Again what we can confirm is there was never any intention by our Finance Department to delay payment as it is Muslim Aid's policy to meet any payment deadlines promptly."

Harrow School says that it does not need to pay, because its sister charity, the Harrow Development Trust, does all fundraising from the public. The Fundraising Regulator has confirmed it is happy that this is the case and amended the Harrow Development Trust’s entry on the register to make this clear. 

The Vodafone Foundation has also said it does not need to pay, because it does not "seek funds from the public" - an explanation the Fundraising Regulator has not confirmed it will accept.

The Ummah Welfare Trust is yet to respond to a request for comment.
 

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