Captain Tom and the Captain Tom Foundation: the erosion of trust in a charitable foundation

The story of the Captain Tom Foundation reinforces the basic point that a charity should not be established for the purpose of making money for private gain, even if that would not be the only reason for setting one up.

For those of us who have been sitting in a tin can far above the world, by way of a brief recap in April 2020 Captain Tom inspired the nation, completing the challenge of walking 100 laps of his garden whilst recovering from illness and in tribute to the NHS. His efforts received widespread coverage by leading media outlets and by 30 April 2020 donations for Captain Tom’s efforts, via a JustGiving page, amounted to over £38.9 million (including Gift Aid).

Alas the charitable foundation set up in his memory has received a great deal of negative press and those running it have been heavily criticised in the report following a statutory inquiry of the Charity Commission. The road to hell can indeed be paved with good intentions.

What are the key lessons for other charitable foundations to learn from this sorry tale?

Do not conflate personal gain with public good

Any benefit to a founding business from a charitable foundation must be only incidental to the pursuit of charitable purposes, because by definition a charity pursues those purposes for public benefit. Following its investigation into the Foundation, the Charity Commission found repeated instances of misconduct and/or mismanagement by Captain Tom’s family who set up the charity in his name. The Commission’s inquiry report concludes that Captain Tom’s daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore (HI-M) and her husband were responsible for a pattern of behaviour which saw them repeatedly benefitting personally from their involvement with the charity.

It appears Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore saw an opportunity not only to continue Captain Tom’s legacy but also to monetise for the family’s own gain the goodwill Captain Tom had earned during a time of national crisis. The “Captain Tom” intellectual property rights were vested in a private family trust and then a licence was granted to a private company owned by the family.

But then in May 2020 the family decided to set up the Captain Tom Foundation as well and while in the application to register a charity the Commission was informed that the family would not be involved, and the founding trustees were not family members, the position had changed less than a year later, after Captain Tom’s death. Mr and Mrs Ingram Moore were appointed as trustees in February 2021, with HI-M resigning shortly afterwards and apparently at her prompting the board then applied to the Commission for authorisation to employ her as an interim chief executive.

A business should be proud of the achievements of the charitable foundation it has created but it cannot claim them as its own and should never seek to use a foundation to advance its own interests.

There needs to be clarity about the extent of the founder’s support especially at the outset

Many charitable foundations continue to rely on their founding business to support them once established, in particular with funds and perhaps also with in-kind IT and administrative support.

While the “Captain Tom” intellectual property rights were vested in a private family trust, the Foundation was given a vague, undocumented right to its use in “philanthropic” circumstances.

The inquiry confirmed that the family of Captain Tom was not prepared to assign any of the intellectual property rights to the charity and was of the view that they could withdraw their consent for the charity to use the name Captain Tom at any point. This meant that the trustees’ and charity’s ability to act independently from a commercial company controlled by the family of Captain Tom, was curtailed due to the way the intellectual property was managed.

Hardly a sound basis for the Foundation to proceed.

Do not mislead the public with your fundraising

Transparency is essential for charities. The sector enjoys high levels of trust but that wasn’t the case around 10 years ago and charities cannot take this for granted. Many of us recall Captain Tom’s book “Tomorrow will be another day.” This was the first book published following a deal the family struck with Penguin Books in 2020 and for which the family (through a limited company it owned) secured an advance of nearly £1.5 million.

The literary agent representing Captain Tom and the publishers Penguin Books understood from conversations with Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore that the family did not want any money from the advance to go to charity, but instead would make a donation when the Captain Tom Foundation was set up.

On that basis Penguin were careful to ensure the words ‘sales’ or ‘proceeds’ could not be used in any promotional materials that might suggest any sale proceeds from the books would go to the charity but, based on the fact that Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore stated that they would make a donation to the charity at a later stage, Penguin’s legal department agreed to the wording ‘published in support of The Captain Tom Foundation’ to be used in a press release of 14 May 2020.

It also appears that Captain Tom himself believed or intended that ‘Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day’ would in some way financially support the charity. The prologue of ‘Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day’ which is attributed to him states: ‘Astonishingly at my age, with the offer to write this memoir I have also been given the chance to raise even more money for the charitable foundation now established in my name.’

The Charity Commission learned that none of the advance was paid to any charity and formally wrote to Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore twice in late 2022 setting out the information it had gathered and to provide them with an opportunity to rectify matters by making a donation to the charity in line with their original intentions as understood by those involved, but on both occasions they declined to do so.

Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore argued that Captain Tom’s books supported the launch of the charity in a number of ways: ‘The launch of the autobiography at the family’s home was attended by many national television and radio channels and newspapers. The Captain Tom Foundation was provided a prominent position at the family’s home giving journalists access to the charity and The Captain Tom Foundation gained thousands of pounds worth of free advertising, promotion and media space.’

The Charity Commission didn’t see it this way and concluded that given the way the books were advertised and promoted, together with media reporting, members of the public are likely to have bought ‘Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day’, ‘One Hundred Steps’, or ‘Captain Tom’s Life Lessons’ thinking they were supporting the charity financially by doing so.

The good reputation of a charity is its most important asset but it is a fragile thing, “for trust not him that hath once broken faith”.

The importance of independent trustees to provide challenge and to manage conflicts of interest

The Commission has concluded that identified failure to manage conflicts of interest that arose out of Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore’s familial links and the charity’s links to their private companies happened repeatedly and led to direct and indirect private benefit for Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore.

The Commission found that the unconflicted trustees also breached their trustee duties to act with reasonable care and skill and to manage the charity’s resources responsibly by not providing sufficient challenge, but at the same time that they did not always have sufficient oversight and control of the administration of the charity as they should have done, because Mr and Mrs Ingram-Moore didn’t provide full disclosure of relevant interests to enable conflicts of interest to be properly managed: the Commission noted that any conflicts of interest which arose in the early agreements with Ingram-Moore companies, before they became trustees and/or interim CEO, were identified and managed appropriately by the unconflicted trustees at the time.

Foundations should start with the right trustees who will discharge their responsibility to act in the best interests of the Foundation by advancing its purposes, without fear or favour. It can be challenging to find trustees independent of the founding business or family, but this saga shows that a failure to manage conflicts of interest can destroy any initial trust and goodwill a charitable foundation may enjoy.

The Captain Tom Foundation reminds us that the cause trumps the organisation, and where the latter is lacking in its ability to deliver the former, it will fail. A lesson for all charities, not just for foundations.

Those considering setting up foundations could learn from Mr Scrooge:

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. ''