Where Most Needed

After two well-publicized cases of charities (Breast Cancer Research Scotland and The Moonbeams children's charity) that spent little money on the causes they raised money for, Scotland is now implementing a system of charity registration and regulation under the authority of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator.    All 20,000 to 25,000 charities are supposed to register, and those with annual income of £25,000 or more must file an annual financial report.  Here is a summary of the provisions of the act.

Already OSCR chief executive Jane Ryder is wading into controversy over whether private schools are providing enough scholarship assistance to students without means to justify their status as fulfilling a charitable purpose and public benefit. 

Registration of a million charities and the annual filing of thousands of reports to the IRS has not proven successful in the US in combating fraudulent appeals that yield little for their causes.  Neither have the 30 different state offices registering charity solicitors.  We have already discussed the cases of Cancer Recovery Foundation of America, Mitch Gold and Global Mindlink Foundation and there are others.  Perhaps, though, Scotland's single authority might succeed where the US has failed, and point the US toward a workable solution to charity regulation.