Failing 'Friends' boss goes

THE Canal & River Trust (CaRT) Head of Fundraising, Ruth Ruderham, is to join Princes Trust International. 

The new charity was launched a week ago to extend the work of the Princes Trust overseas.

Failure

It was less than two weeks ago that narrowboatworld reported that she may have already left CaRT after being held responsible for the Trust's failure to engage with its ‘Friends' electorate and the débâcle of the Trust falsely claiming that none of the ‘Friends' nominees had sufficient sponsors to stand for election.

However, that aside, it will no doubt be her poor performance in fundraising generally for which she will be remembered. With an expectation that CaRT would have 100,000 regular donors over 10 years, her then boss, Simon Salem, reported to CaRT's trustees that at the end of its third financial year it had less than one tenth of that number (i.e. less than 10,000).

£3 millions lost

This poor performance means that CaRT is actually losing money on charitable giving—some £3 millions to date. One wonders how many of CaRT's donors realise that their donations do not even cover the costs of Ruderham's 10 strong fundraising team and dozens of chuggers.

[Although no official announcement has been made regarding the ethnic 'Friend' not allowed to stand for council, Roger Hanbury, CaRT's Head of Governance, has blamed the fiasco on a 'clerical error'. No doubt he will be next to go!]