# Fundraising payments sought for foreign charity investments

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2019/09/09/fundraising-payments-sought-for-foreign-charity-investments/
- Published: 2019-09-09T15:06:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**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](http://www.irishtimes.com), 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.

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