The boss of a military charity has defended the use of a private fund-raising company which keeps 80p from every £1 raised from ‘prize competition ticket’ sales.
Stephen Robertson, the chief executive of The Invicta Foundation, explained his organisation’s money-raising strategies following criticism on social media.
A Facebook group called The Walter Mitty Hunters Club posted a photo of people collecting for The Invicta Foundation in Huddersfield’s Kingsgate Centre on Friday.
A member of the Facebook group claimed that the collectors had refused to answer questions about how much went to charity and how much to their own promotion company.
Mr Robertson, who formed the charity in 2010 after his eldest son Ashley was badly wounded in Afghanistan, said his wasn’t the only charity to use third party collections companies.
He said some of the those employed by the collections company were ex-service personnel and using an outside agency meant the charity did not have to employ its own fund-raisers.
“It would be great to have volunteers work five/six days a week all over the country and pay their own travel travel but people still have to live.
“Some of those employed by the collection company are veterans so we are helping them work and earn a living.
“In an ideal world we would love to have 100% (of money collected) but we don’t live in that ideal world.”
Mr Robertson said that shopping centres charged third party collectors and charities a lot of money for the use of their premises.
He said that the 20% received from sales of ‘game of skill’ prize tickets added up to more money than the charity collected on its own.
“The 20% we get is more than we can collect every week.
“We would have to employ someone to work six days a week to organise people to collect around the country - that means paying them.”
He said it was unfair to label third party collections a rip-off.
“I understand that there are scams out there but we are not one.
“The third party company we use we are very strict with. Any complaints we receive are dealt with within 48 hrs.
“To date we have only had a handful of complaints and everyone that we have spoken to who have complained have gone away satisfied.”
He urged online critics to do some proper research before commenting on his charity, which is based in Colchester.
“I would ask that people do their homework before posting and also to read previous posts.”
Mr Robertson set up the charity with partner Cheryl Hall after their son, Ashley, lost both legs in Afghanistan. They discovered there wasn’t much support for non-dependent family members.
