Reporting charity fraud and working together to prevent it
How we are improving the process for reporting fraud and what you can do to protect your charity from harm.
Earlier this year we surveyed the sector to get a better understanding of how fraud is affecting charities and what we can do to develop an effective counter-fraud culture in future.
We will be sharing the results of our fraud survey during Charity Fraud Awareness Week next month (21 to 25 October 2019).
Recent analysis of reported frauds reveals that charities are continuing to fall victim to the most prevalent threats, such as Mandate, CEO fraud and phishing - all types of ‘social engineering’, involving manipulation or impersonation, usually by email.
These scams can put your charity’s valuable funds, infrastructure and reputation at risk, but they can be highly sophisticated and hard to detect, fooling even the most experienced and senior people across all sectors.
To help you report fraud quickly and effectively we recently introduced a new online form to report serious incidents in your charity. This can be used whenever you need to report a serious incident to the Charity Commission.
The new online form has made it much easier to report incidents so that you can quickly take further action to minimise harm.
If you think your charity has been targeted it is important to speak out and report this, so we can better identify the risks and help others across the sector.
Protecting your charity from harm
You can take vital steps to protect your charity from harm by getting involved in this year’s fraud campaign International Charity Fraud Awareness Week. We are encouraging everyone in the sector to get involved to help fight fraud. You can:
- download the supporters pack from the Fraud Advisory Panel website
- register for the Fraud Awareness Hub which includes important resources such as factsheets, videos and question and answer sessions
- follow and engage with the campaign on Twitter using the hashtag #CharityFraudOut
If you have a positive story to tell about fighting fraud or cybercrime in your charity you can enter the Charities Against Fraud Awards for recognition of best practice. There are award categories for large and small charities.