Recently, the Charity Commission published an alert with helpful advice and guidance around the increased risk of fraud and cybercrime against charities during the coronavirus pandemic.
With the aim of minimising the risk for charities, the alert includes information around how to protect yourself from the most common types of fraud and how to report it.
Sadly, in times of crisis, there is a rise in unscrupulous and potentially illegal activity, not just to charities but across all sectors. Unfortunately, this means there have been unsuccessful attempts from fraudulent organisations trying to access our COVID-19 response funding and we want to offer reassurance to our donors, grantees and organisations that we are doing all we can to mitigate this.
We have robust systems in place including rigorous due diligence checks on all applications received to ensure that funding is going towards legitimate organisations to be used to support people who have been adversely affected by the situation. These checks have already proved successful in uncovering and preventing fraudulent applications from proceeding. This is why if we are asking you more questions than usual, please accept that we are balancing need for heightened risk management with our desire to help your organisation quickly and get funds to where they are needed most.
We want your organisation and LCF to be able to continue to work together, which is why we have the procedures in place and additional checks. If you have any concerns or questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us at applications@londoncf.org.uk.