19 November 2018
Disaster relief charity overcame major obstacles to get £11 million donations to victims of London terror attacks and Grenfell Tower
The London Emergencies Trust (LET) had to deal with tough obstacles to ensure every penny of the £11 million donated for the bereaved and injured by the four London terror attacks in 2017 and by the Grenfell Tower fire reached them, according to an independent review of its work. The review by Dr Diana Leat, Distributing Funds in a Disaster, outlines the challenges the charity faced.
Obstacles LET had to overcome:
- uncertainty about amounts of money raised and the likely number of recipients.
- hampered by the absence of data and by other organisations’ caution in sharing it, slowing down its ability to pass on charitable donations to beneficiaries.
- expectations and lack of understanding created considerable pressure on LET to distribute charitable gifts quickly. which was not always possible.
But:
- LET was praised by other charities working around Grenfell as ‘calm’, ‘co-operative’, ‘helpful but not directive’ and ‘adult about sharing’.
Conclusion:
- the report will add to a growing resource at a time when calls are being made for a national framework for responses to the sorts of events experienced in 2017
Download a copy of the review here
Download a copy of the full press release here
Download a copy of LET's annual report and accounts for the year ending December 2017 here.