Fundraising payments sought for foreign charity investments
Howard Lake | 9 September 2019 | News
Charities have been asked to pay agents thousands to secure donations of €500,000 from foreign multimillionaires seeking Irish residency as part of a State-run programme, according to a report in the Irish Times.
In a notice on the website of the Department of Justice and Equality, the unit that operates the Immigrant Investor Programme said registered charities had been asked to make payments to third parties in order to secure donations.
The payments were sought by way of finders’ fees, consultancy and other such payments. “In some cases this may be by way of a deduction from the endowment itself or in the form of a separate payment by the registered charity,” the Department says on its website.
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Such payments are not in compliance with the scheme, the notice said. The full amount of the donation had to go to the purpose for which it was donated. “A separate payment to an agent by a charity is not permitted.”
The payments have been sought as part of a programme under which wealthy people from outside the European Economic Area can get Irish residency in return for making substantial commercial investments or a €500,000 charitable donation.
The Immigrant Investor Programme raised at least €500 million for the economy in the six years since its 2012 launch. Last year, there were 320 applications to the scheme, almost all of them Chinese. The vast majority were approved.
The threshold for the Investor Programme has now been raised to €1 million.
According to The Irish Times, one charity that has benefited from the scheme, ICare Housing, has defended the scheme and says the department misunderstood how fundraising works. David Hall, of the Irish Mortgage Holders’ Association, which established ICare says fundraising enterprises go to charities all the time and say, we’ll organise a ball for you, in return for a fee.
He said five Chinese investors had agreed to put €2 million into the charity he founded, ICare Housing, as part of an application currently with the department. The money would be used for social housing.
This application does not involve an agent fee but other applications being looked at by the charity would, he said.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.