The Charity Commission is investigating two impact investment charities after they both repeatedly failed to submit accounts.
SharedImpact and SharedImpact Foundation (UK) Limited both failed to file accounts on time for at least four consecutive financial years up until March 2023.
The charities were previously placed in the Charity Commission’s double defaulter class inquiry in March 2021 before the commission escalated its involvement to two separate statutory inquiries.
According to Companies House, both organisations have received multiple notices for compulsory strike-off in recent years but these have all been discontinued.
Both charities were set up by Paul Cheng, who previously led the Charities Aid Foundation’s social investment team called CAF Venturesome.
Cheng is no longer a director of either charity, according to Companies House, with Bob North a trustee of both organisations now.
Scope of inquiries
Cheng registered SharedImpact as a charity in 2012, with the SharedImpact Foundation (UK) Limited formed two years later.
He told Civil Society after the original charity’s launch that it was a global donor-advised fund in which people can donate to the charity and buy a social investment product.
The commission said its inquiries will examine the administration, governance, and management of both charities including the trustees’ compliance with their statutory accounting and reporting responsibilities.
It will also consider whether the charities have appropriate and robust financial controls in place, whether they are being managed in accordance with their governing document and if they are operating in accordance with their stated objects and for the public benefit.
The inquiry into SharedImpact will examine whether the charity has a sufficient number of trustees, with North the only one currently registered.
SharedImpact’s income was £192,000 and expenditure £200,000 in the year to March 2024.
On future plans, its latest accounts say: “As the charity continues to build relationships with charities, donors and their wealth advisors it is looking to further its social investment activities, focussing primarily in the UK, to provide early-stage strategic support where alternative funding sources are unavailable.”
Meanwhile, SharedImpact Foundation (UK) Limited’s income was £621,000 in the year to March 2022, the most recently filed accounts show, while its expenditure was £95,700.
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