Charities are becoming more innovative in their drive to identify and secure new funding whether from individuals, corporate donors or fund raising supporters.

Only five years ago there were few charities truly trading online, whereas now it seems that every charity can offer online access to donations and fund raising participants. This is great as new sources of income for the charity and many have benefited and seen revenue increase accordingly.

The main risk issues surrounding the use of the internet are well known. Hackers and scams beset the media and the charity sector itself has been specifically targeted by dishonest people – many outside the UK – where the website has been built.

This is a complicated risk to manage where expert assistance from internet advisory firms is recommended. No matter how good your IT Department is consider that the Pentagon has been hacked into, banks almost routinely have information stolen by hackers, and others have been impacted by malicious ex employees and temporary staff on a mission to defraud the charity.

In addition, there are leading edge insurance products, such as the one Oval has developed with Lloyd’s of London, that can help protect your donor and other databases, offering the charity some protection and funds to draw upon to protect your reputation.

The online “Gold Rush” is important to the sector in these hi-tech times and our aim as an insurance broker and risk adviser is to help charities navigate through these risks so that charity income can be maximised.

Oval can help through assisting you to identify and assess the risks that you face, as well as looking at your controls and in concert with IT Advisory firms offering better ways to manage these risks.

For more information contact Alyson Pepperill on
07824 492665 or email alyson.pepperill@theovalgroup.com