Santa bears fall victim to Irish salary controversy
Howard Lake | 15 September 2014 | News
One of the most high profile fundraising events in Dublin at Christmas will not take place this year due to the fallout from the salary top-up scandal.
The Santa Bear appeal run will be run next year, according to the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC). Newspaper reports had suggested that CRC’s largest fundraising event had been cancelled permanently.
Last year there was controversy over top ups to the CRC chief executive’s salary and a payoff of €740,000 when he left the organisation. It was alleged that some of this money came from fundraising income.
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The new chief executive of CRC, Stephanie Manahan, told the Irish Times that most fundraising activity had stopped this year, including the Santa Bear appeal, due to the adverse publicity.
Information on the Santa Bear appeal and other fundraising events has been taken down from the CRC website. Ms Manahan said that there would be a new fundraising strategy in the future.
“We will then re-look at our whole fundraising strategy in line with the overall strategy of the organisation. There will still be some little things happening, but the bulk of our fundraising in the past would have been things like comedy nights and golf classics, but at the moment most of those have not gone ahead,” she 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.