A representative from the Charity Commission said this morning that she expects that charities involved with the Dove Trust’s suspended fundraising portal CharityGiving could lose even more than the £250,000 first estimated.

Michelle Russell, the Commission's head of investigation and enforcement, was being interviewed by BBC News, and not only confirmed the shortfall figure of £250,000 reported yesterday by civilsociety.co.uk but warned that “it’s likely to be much more than that”.

Pesh Framjee of Crowe Clark Whitehill, the Dove Trust's Commission-appointed interim manager, had already told the BBC yesterday that charities may have to "take a hit" on the funds they are owed.

Framjee held a meeting today with what former Dove Trust trustee Keith Colman yesterday described as “corporate or charitable organisations or individuals who could step in to resolve the situation to the benefit of the whole charitable community”.

Framjee could not be contacted today for an update.

‘Small charities likely to suffer’

The fundraising director of one charity who had used CharityGiving told civilsociety.co.uk that his charity only used CharityGiving for an isolated event more than six months ago and so was not affected by the site suspension. But he warned that the nature of the portal meant that it is likely to be smaller organisations that take the ‘hit’.

“The larger charities tend to use JustGiving or Virgin Money Giving,” he said. “Small organisations tended to use CharityGiving because there was no registration fee, so it was suitable for one-off events.”
 
He added that CharityGiving’s reputation had been in decline in recent years among fundraisers.

Charities report thousands lost

One fundraising event that has lost money is En route Mousquetaires, three friends cycling across Europe to raise funds for the French Red Cross and the Serge Betsen Academy.

Robert Guyot, William Price and Fabrice Lavenir are apparently still unaware that the Dove Trust situation has cost them at least £3,000 of donations, according to the Twitter handle @cyclemusketeers:

And the Bodie Hodges Foundation tweeted that it has lost £6,000:

Commission: ‘Dove Trust reassured us’

Yesterday’s civilsociety.co.uk story on the Dove Trust/CharityGiving saga has enticed comments from readers questioning why the Charity Commission did not act sooner.

Peter Munro, consultant and former fundraising director, wrote: “Why did it take so long for the Charity Commission to act?

“Given the position of the charity in taking donations on behalf of other charities, at the very least they should have suspended the charity's trustees and launched an investigation in May 2010 when satisfactory accounts had not been filed.”

A spokeswoman for the Commission responded: “After concerns were raised about the lack of accounts, we opened a regulatory compliance case into the charity, which was later escalated to become a statutory inquiry in August 2011.

“It has been part of the investigation to obtain these accounts, and we received numerous reassurances from the trustees, who seemed to be cooperating with the Commission, to the effect that the financial issues were being managed, including the hiring of professional advisers and appointment of new trustees."

The Dove Trust had not filed any accounts since the year ending April 2009. The Commission noted in its statement on Friday accompanying the suspension that it had “serious concerns about mismanagement in the administration of the charity by the trustees in relation to the operation of the online donations portal and risk to charity funds”.

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