4 ms·

The bit that feels dishonest is they share a brand, and publicly present themselves as a charity, and actually it's for personal gain. Sure they dotted their i

• matt-p 2y ago
  No two separate things, you cannot, basically, trade under a charity structure, it would be almost legally impossible for the charity to be selling the raspberry Pis. Captain tom was just a badly run charity, they didn't trade.
  • mytailorisrich 2y ago
    Yes, setting up a commercial subsidiary is the standard way to go to trade in order to raise money for a charity. But I think a charity should spend most of its income on charitable activities. According to its accounts the Foundation spends £12m on that out of a £213m income from trading, which seems very small.
    • matt-p 2y ago
      Sure, but they're now a publicly traded company aren't they, it couldn't be say 60% whereas <=10% is a decent chunk but can still be justified to shareholders in the context of renting the trademark (which I HOPE resides in the foundation) and good will/marketing.
      • mytailorisrich 2y ago
        That's not quite how it is. The commercial subsidiary is a publicly-traded company and the Foundation (the charity) owns about 49% of it (last year it wasn't publicly traded and they owed ~98% of it iirc). The Foundation received £213m from "other trading activities" last year (which I interpret as income from their share of the commercial subsidiary) out of a total income of £220m. Out of this, the Foundation spent £12m on "charitable activities" and £195m on "raising funds"... [1] [1] https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/5002372/charity-overview https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/ch...