Chris Stoddard has blamed third party contractors for the collapse of two of his fundraising agencies within three years as he works on getting his latest venture up and running.
Stoddard, whose CSDM Fundraising went into liquidation late last month, said that the failure of its postal services supplier to deliver its Christmas mailings in December, instead delaying the postage of the mailings to April, cost CSDM Fundraising in the region of £300,000 and prompted its filing for administration. The company is suing the contractor.
Stoddard also blamed a contractor for the collapse of the predecessor to CSDM Fundraising, CSDM, in 2010. He claims that Delta Data, another mailing company which now no longer exists, dumped its mailings into landfill rather than posting them. This loss led to the collapse of CSDM, which soon resurfaced as CSDM Fundraising.
Stoddard was unable to comment further on the reasons for the current liquidation, but said it did not undermine the business model of his company, which is paid by results on its mailings for often small charities.
“The company has a proven, successful and viable business model. But for the unforeseeable actions of the third party I do not believe that the company’s current difficulties would have occurred,” he said.
He said both staff and clients of CSDM Fundraising were being brought over to his new company, CS Fundraising.
“I do want to set the record absolutely straight in respect of damaging claims that have been made in respect of our business model. It is not, and never has been, the case that our clients only receive gift aid. They have always received substantial donation revenue as a result of our work.”
Third liquidation
The liquidation of CSDM Fundraising in late June is the third liquidation of companies associated with Chris Stoddard in as many years.
When CSDM collapsed in the summer of 2010 there was controversy over the sale of its assets – most significantly its mailing list – for what critics argued was a fire sale price to Stoddard’s other company, CS Incentives. However, CS Incentives itself went into liquidation a year before the latest collapse, of CSDM Fundraising.
CS Fundraising, the company to which CSDM Fundraising’s staff and clients are being transferred, has been a dormant company, linked to Stoddard, which was incorporated in June 2008. While CS Fundraising was dormant up until 2012 at least, Companies House records show that it filed for a mortgage in March 2013, three months before CSDM Fundraising put itself into voluntary administration.
