Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Make It Happen Foundation and the Case of the Disappearing Hospitals

I've spoken of the Make It Happen Foundation before. Ostensibly a charity it was noted by its absence from the Revenue's list of approved charities. It seems key members of staff also worked on a previous venture which lost Revenue approval and was wound up for failing to pay suppliers. The sparse text on their website appears to contain content copied from the Make A Wish Foundation, a recognised, worthy charity.

Their front page advertises "Hospitals Associated with the MIHF":
A morbid sense of curiosity led me to click the link which delivered me to the following establishments. Click for a larger image:

You'll note "Bernardos", a misspelling of Barnardos, Ireland's leading children's charity. The entry is completed by the Dublin address of their teenage support programme and the Limerick phone number of their family support service. The prefix is incorrect.

Immediately below we find the Children's Sunshine Home. They also operate as the Laura Lynn house and are Ireland's first and only children's hospice.

I do quite enjoy programming as a method of finding information, but just occasionally it can be simpler to ask the question.





You've seen the references to entries being removed. I have engendered some interest from the folk behind the Make It Happen Foundation: they follow me on Twitter, I presume they are not primarily interested in my thoughts on atheism. Shortly after the tweets embedded above they updated their site to remove the references.

This is a welcome development, but it does not absolve them of falsely claiming association with worthy charities to further their enterprise and there is little to recommend an organisation that only rights wrongs once caught. What do you imagine I would find if I contacted the other organisations to which they claim association?

Update 1: Enable Ireland also seem surprised by the supposed association:

6 comments:

failedatheist said...

Good work Holmes :)

Geoff said...

Thanks Dr :-)

Matchstick Maker said...

Did you get in touch with any of the other charities\ organisations it claims to be affiliated with? Also, what is the point of this organisation? As in, why are they lying? Is it to falsely receive monies and to spend it, or do you even know?

Anonymous said...

I actually went for a interview with them. When i asked about the charity number I was told that their previous charity "children to lapland" was wound up

Nota Typo said...

I remember them bagpacking in Tesco Wexford, last year. First time I've ever seen a group bag packing and not recognised one person involved... because they're not a local charity or voluntary group.

From your articles they don't sound like ANY sort of charity or voluntary group!

bananatoast said...

Ok wow.

Great posts.