Government Grants for All

Small businesses, artists and charities get creative to raise funds

Small businesses, artists and charities get creative to raise funds
What happens when funding dries up, investors are uninterested and grant requests are denied?
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IMF Mission for the 2011 Article IV Consultation with Suriname Concluding Statement
The mission would like to thank the authorities for their warm hospitality and generous assistance in coordinating our meetings with government officials and representatives of the private sector, labor, the diplomatic community, and the opposition.
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Tags: Artists, Businesses, Charities, Creative, Funds, Raise, Small

Charities at Risk As Diana Fund Freezes Grants

More than 100 charities could face closure or severe cutbacks following a decision by trustees of the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund to freeze its grants to preserve its assets, in the latest stage of a long-running battle against a US corporation making memorabilia of the late princess.

The fund has appealed to other charities and grant agencies to help bail out small charities dependent on its funding but has warned that hundreds of jobs may be at risk if its legal battle in the US courts fails.

The fund is being sued for $25m (£15m) by the Franklin Mint, a Californian-based corporation which specialises in making and selling souvenirs of personalities, following the failure of the trustees’ bid to stop it cashing in on the princess’s memory three years ago.

The corporation wants the money, which would otherwise be spent on charitable work around the world, in compensation for what it claims is the damage done to its sales efforts and reputation and for the “embarrassment” it suffered.

It also emerged that the trustees could be personally liable if they are successfully sued by the Franklin Mint.

Andrew Purkis, the fund’s chief executive, said: “I think you will have to point the finger particularly at a big American corporation, which already had its victory and had all the dues paid to it in court, launching a quite unnecessary malicious prosecution suit against a charity which is doing fantastic work among the most vulnerable people in the world. If you really have to get into the blame game, look at that.”

Among the 120 charities assisted by the fund are those closely associated with interests shown by the princess before her death, including HIV/Aids, landmine and cluster bomb clearance and a relief fund for the families of prisoners.

The fund has paid out £40m in grants over the past five years, with a further £10m promised to charities. It was expecting to disburse £4.5m before the end of this year.
It has already had to pay out £4m in legal costs.

Lucy Gampell of the charity Direct Action for Prisoners’ Families told the BBC’s Breakfast programme that her organisation was facing the loss of a quarter of its annual budget. “I had to tell all my small staff team, who are all very hard-working individuals, that every single one of them is going to have to go on to reduced working hours because it’s either that or making one person redundant,” she said.

“It also means that we will have to cut a number of our services … It’s a huge amount of money to lose.”

In a statement, the fund said its decision to freeze funding had put its trustees in a “most painful legal and moral dilemma as to whether to continue grants or retain all such money in the fund until the legal position becomes clearer … the fund is legally obliged to freeze not only new grants but the payment of existing grants.”

The problem, which could see the collapse of the fund and the loss of 500 jobs, stems from the fateful decision taken by the trustees in 1998 to try to stop the mint cashing in commercially on the princess’s memory. But its claim that the mint was engaged in unfair competition, false advertising and trademark dilution was thrown out in 2000 by a US district judge, who said the princess had done nothing to prevent others from using her image while she was alive.

Dr Purkis told the BBC Today programme: “We are going to ask a range of different grant-giving bodies if they can replace the funding, if we can no longer fund it from our own assets, and then when our assets are unfrozen again we will of course reimburse them. There would be a very good chance they will get their money back, with interest if they want it. The worst outcome for them would be that they would end up paying a very good grant.”

He added: “At the time the trustees were doing what they thought was right for the memory of the princess. It is only with hindsight that it is clear it was a mistake.”

Tags: Charities, Diana, Freezes, Fund, Grants, Risk

US Religious Charities Win $2.15bn in State Grants

The Bush administration channeled $2.15bn (£1.25bn) to faith-based charities last year, advancing its mission to increase the share of government aid money given to religious organizations.

The figure, contained in a White House report unveiled on Thursday, does not account for all of the grants awarded by an administration determined to increase the involvement of churches and religious organizations in social services provision.

The revelation deepened concerns among aid professionals and civil liberty groups about the quality of services offered by some of the religious groups – especially at a time when funds for social programs are being cut. There are also charges that the Bush administration is underwriting proselytizing campaigns by the Christian right.

About 10.9% of competitive federal grants for programs for the needy went to religious charities last year, up from 10.3% in 2004. Religious groups played an especially large role in public housing, receiving 24% of grant money . They also received 14.2% of funding from the international development agency.

In the five years that George Bush has been in the White House, 11 government agencies have set up religious offices, ostensibly to help coordinate the provision of social services by faith-based organizations. This week, the president established one in the department of homeland security.

“It used to be that groups were prohibited from receiving any federal funding whatsoever because they had a cross or a star or a crescent on the wall,” Mr Bush told religious leaders at the annual White House conference on faith-based initiatives on Thursday, adding: “and that’s changed for the better.”

Mr Bush’s belief in faith-based charities has long provoked controversy overseas, where pressure from the US Christian right has diverted a quarter of the £15bn the White House pledged to fight Aids to abstinence programs.

At home, civil liberty groups accuse the Bush administration of using the faith-based charities to cover up for spending cuts. They also say there is not enough monitoring to ensure that funds are not used to spread religion. “Some of these organizations do good work, but for some of them their first goal is winning a new soul to convert, and that type of activity should always be funded with private dollars,” said Rob Boston of the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “There is virtually no attempt to monitor these religious institutions unless someone forces the issue.”

Last month, the Bush administration cut off funds to the Silver Ring Thing, an organization preaching teenage abstinence that has a branch in Britain. The decision followed a law suit by the American Civil Liberties Union, which found the group had been urging young people to embrace Christianity.

Tags: $2.15bn, Charities, Grants, Religious, State