The Fundraising Regulator has found that a social enterprise’s fundraising activities breached eight provisions of its code and misled donors.
Depher, a community interest company (CIC) that offered subsidised or free plumbing and heating to vulnerable people, became viral after former director James Anderson promoted his acts of kindness across social media.
However, the regulator opened an investigation last year after receiving multiple complaints about misleading fundraising in December 2023 and January 2024.
The regulator has today concluded that Depher, which has ceased operations and not yet responded to the report, breached its fundraising code.
It has sent a set of recommendations to Depher’s successor organisation, Community Elderly and Support CIC, and shared them with the CIC regulator.
Breaches found
The Fundraising Regulator found that Depher used the same images on social media multiple times to ask for donations.
While this is allowed, these images were not dated and the context given to the image changed each time.
This included using images of the same people but featuring different stories about them.
The regulator also found Depher’s fundraising was misleading because it failed to evidence claims it made in its communications.
Depher’s fundraising model was also confusing, the regulator said, and in breach of standards related to restricted and unrestricted funds.
This is because the social enterprise had multiple fundraising pages, some of which raised money for a specific purpose, while some were used for general use.
It did not ensure that money raised through the overlapping fundraising appeals was entirely expended on the given purpose.
For example, the social enterprise used donation money to purchase a house as an asset.
The regulator also found that while Depher did attempt to address complaints, this was found to be an inadequate process because it did not learn from the complaints received.
Attempts to register as charity
Anderson stepped down as director of Depher in July 2024 and a new director took charge.
When Depher was first reported to the regulator, it was reported the plumbing and heating firm received at least £2m in donations after social media stories of kind acts made Anderson a viral sensation during the cost-of-living crisis.
It was reported at the time that Depher claimed Anderson prevented an elderly woman from killing herself when in fact she had died years earlier.
The Charity Commission confirmed at the time it had previously received three applications from an organisation called Depher to join its register, all of which were unsuccessful.
It formally determined that the organisation was not charitable in 2022 and 2023 and refused registration because it was not satisfied how those in need of assistance were being identified, how their charitable needs were being assessed, and how the services provided met a charitable need.
Another application to register as a charity in 2020 was not processed due to it being incomplete.
Depher has been contacted for comment.
