I’m back in the hotseat again after a short trip to London this weekend, and today is my birthday so if you want to send any large cheques to me from your many offshore cash repositories then feel free. Especially you, Ashcroft.
Now, you might have seen in the Gasjet or even in the national press the story about Wounded Warriors UK which is a company that purportedly accepts donations from the public and channels the cash into projects benefitting those armed personnel that are injured in the line of duty.
Clearly, business owner William Knight has seen that playing on the heart strings of people can make him a quick buck, and he’s jumped in and created this new company in order to milk it. But that’s happened many times before and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it provided there isn’t any hoodwinking going on.
The beef that Mr Callow and the general public have with this company is that it’s not a registered charity and all of the money doesn’t go to good causes because Mr Knight pays himself a salary from it.
Trading Standards are investigating the company and the Ministry of Defence has told their staff not to get involved with them because there is apparently too much risk.
Don’t all charities work like this though?
Nobody works for free, and some charities pay their staff rather impressive sums of money. The chief executive of Cancer Research UK earns over £200,000 a year. The Royal Opera House, itself a registered charity, paid it’s top earner over £500,000 in 2008. In the same year, Riverside Housing Group’s boss received £231,000. The boss of the Anchor Trust receives £400,000.
Lets take it a little further. There was an earthquake in Haiti a short while ago, and music mogul Simon Cowell decided to create a charity single in order to raise money for rebuilding it. We’re told all of the famous singers on the record gave their time for free, so why is it, then, that the tune costs a few pennies less than £4.00 in the shops, yet in the small print on the jewel case it says, and I’m paraphrasing as I didn’t buy it, “£1 from the sale of this record goes to Haiti”?
That’s only 25%, so it means people – maybe Mr Cowell himself – are profiting from it. Where’s the massive investigation?
The way it seems to me is that Wounded Warriors UK is a charity in all but name, and works in the same way. I am guessing that charities have to disclose their financial ins and outs though, whereas Wounded Warriors UK probably doesn’t so there’s nothing to say that Wounded Warriors UK actually gives anything to anyone.
Regardless, is there actually wrong with Mr Knight taking a cut of the money he raises with Wounded Warriors UK, provided he’s informing donors that 100% of the money doesn’t go to good causes?
You must first help yourself before you help others. It says so on the information brochure on planes, and thats all that these people are doing. Two birds with one stone etc.
I really hope people arent kicking up that much of a fuss over this.
So Rip off Britain has supporters in Rip off Blackpool. Shame on you, William Knight should be locked up, but I guess you want him to be Mayor.
Post under one name please Steven; I don’t care which it is.
If he registered as a charity, would it all be alright? How would that change anything?
He’d still be taking a cut and he’d still be presumably giving money he collects to good causes.
The only difference I can see is that his business would be transparent and we’d be able to see what he was taking and what he was giving.
There’re no rules that suggest you have to be a charity in order to collect money on the streets, via raffle tickets or whatever else he’s doing, although I guess you have to make it fairly clear to the donors that you’re not a charity rather than playing on the assumption that you are.
What’s the difference between this and something like Comic Relief? Comic Relief is just a wrapper charity that takes money and funnels it to other charities. Comic Relief has administration costs – including staff – just like Wounded Warriors UK does.
I agree Phil, transparency is the key, so its an informed choice to decide whether or not to give in the first place.
IF the public were told up front that only 10% or 20% of their money would actually get to injured soldiers very few would buy raffle tickets.
I have not checked but would expect about 90% of comic relief money gets to the good cause with less than 10% on admin.
If you want to help soldiers give to The British Legion not shitty conmen like William Knight.
The thing is, I agree with your last point, but this witchhunt surrounding William Knight is utterly sensationalist. If you look at the facts, he is doing nothing wrong unless he is seeking to deceive people into believing that he is a charity, whatever difference that makes.
Just as you’ve assumed that 90% of comic relief money goes to good causes, you’ve assumed that 10% of Mr Knight’s collection money does. Both of these figures are made up, by you.
Granted, you could be correct. But there’s an equal chance that you aren’t!
All the big charities take cuts out of donations for salaries anyway. The real question is clarity so that people know what they are doing. The shame is that most people don’t know because they don’t read what these things say. We sometimes get collection bags for a breast cancer charity based in Lithuania that only goes to benefit women in Lithuania. It says so on the packet in small print – but a lot of people don’t read that far.
I agree, I’d have binned it after reading “donation”
Isnt it strange his premises are broken into just before his staff xmas party and they manage to grab £16,000 of the charity takings.
When his staff are asked about the charity they know nothing about H4H or the American Charity Wounded Wariors of which he is using there logo and name.
To all of you that have bad comments.. Have you ever heard of a game called Chinese whispers? The 1st person starts with the sentence and generally by the time it’s reached the 3rd person it’s a total different story. My point being, naive comments are cruel & as they spread they can damage unfairly! Do NOT use this man’s name in a negative way, unless you have evidence that he is doing wrong!! Shame on you! Do you honestly think that the write up’s in the tabloids are always a perfect reflection of the real story???? If you answer yes, your very very wrong!!!
Since most of the comments aren’t negative though he doesn’t exactly have anything to fear from this discussion. If he’s done something wrong it will probably come out – if not then he’s fine. In principle he’s not doing a lot different to large charities that already have paid staff and that’s the predominant theme here.