Stichting The Harber Charitable Foundation (‘HCF’) was formally established on 16 March 2015 with its statutory seat in Naarden (now Gooisemeren).

 

HCF is registered at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce under number 62876724 and with the Dutch tax authorities with number 8549.94.816.

 

Stichting The Harber Charitable Foundation

Nieuwe Haven 7

1411 SG Naarden

The Netherlands

 

+31 65 370 8225

 

www.theharberfoundation.org

 

HCF has a board of three trustees. The three trustees of HCF are citizens of and resident in The Netherlands. Mr Hennessy has dual NL/UK citizenship.

They are:

Mr Christopher Hennessy – Chairman and Secretary

Mr John Verbrugge – Treasurer

Ms Belinda Hartong

The trustees receive no remuneration for their work and receive no expenses in cash or in kind. There are no employees.

 

Purpose/Objectives

The aims of HCF are: The furtherance of Charitable Purposes or any Charitable Purpose in The Netherlands or Worldwide irrespective of race, sex, sexual preference, colour, creed or religion, as the trustees may from time to time determine including but not limited to the advancement of education and the relief of poverty.

 

In addition HCF has extended its activities to support projects that benefit the environment and protect certain endangered species of animal. These projects are complementary to the educational and poverty relief aspects of our work as such environmental and conservation projects always have implications for the local human communities.

 

The projects that HCF supports are mainly initiated and run by the local peoples we seek to help. HCF trustees endeavour to visit the projects regularly.

 

Examples of the projects are:

KUAP Street Children Program

Safe Water and Aids Project, Kenya (SWAP)

Project Destiny of Pittsburgh

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh

 

 

History of Charitable Giving

 

Before the establishment of Stichting The Harber Charitable Foundation, the founder trustees had worked together as trustees of a UK foundation with a similar name, The Harber Charitable Foundation, registered with The Charities Commission of England and Wales number 1111429. In 2015 it became appropriate to create a wholly Netherlands based stichting, Stichting The Harber Charitable Foundation.

 

The Dutch stichting took over the responsibility for projects and remaining funds from the UK charitable foundation in the last quarter of 2016.

 

Organisation

 

The organisation of HCF is simple. The three trustees make decisions by consensus or said otherwise unanimous. In the absence of one trustee, two trustees can decide to agree on a small matter or amount to be paid.

 

All trustees offer their time on an unpaid basis. All expenses are paid privately by the trustees.

 

A small number of independent professional advisors assist the HCF board as necessary.

 

The majority of the administrative work and project liaison is undertaken by one trustee. A second trustee is responsible for assisting with and authorising payments over €1,000 in value.

 

Realisation objectives/Projects

 

New projects are found by reference or sometimes by coincidence. Favoured projects are those initiated and run by the local people whose local community will benefit from the activities of the project. HCF rarely funds 100% of a project. Our goal is always that on the long run the projects will become independent from HCF.

 

Before any funds are provided, HCF will learn about the project and how it works and review the intended and actual benefits of the projects for the target community. The charitable status of the project will be investigated, and if there is no charitable entity to which funds can be supplied, HCF will rigorously check that funds are only being provided to individuals or organisations who will distribute or the use the funds for charitable purposes.

 

Where possible, all projects are visited regularly. When possible at least twice a year in the case of projects outside the Netherlands, more often for Dutch based projects. Of course this was not possible during the Covid period, but since the easing of restrictions, all projects have been again visited by a trustee.

 

Our visits to these projects, together with written reports from the projects on at least an annual basis, form the basis of our ongoing evaluation of each project, upon which basis we will decide about future funding for each project.

 

 

Finance and administration

 

Funding is solely provided from private donations by the three trustees. There is no fixed amount made available for the stichting on a regular basis.

 

No other external funding will be sought because the existing funding is enough for realizing the goals of HCF.

 

The day to day administration of the foundation is undertaken by one of the trustees. 

 

The funds are kept on no-risk bank accounts and/or deposit accounts and and/or money-market accounts at the RaboBank. A small amount was legally invested in the Dutch bond market in the period 2019 through 2023 only.

 

Payments to potential beneficiaries and to suppliers are first authorised by all three trustees. The payment process for amounts €1.000,00 requires the signature of two trustees. This procedure has been authorised by HCF’s accountants.

 

 

Communication

 

Funding applications from existing and potential beneficiaries are received either by post or by e-mail. The application is reviewed by exchange of e-mail until such time as a formal application is agreed, or not. At the point at which an application is likely to be agreed by the trustees, the likely beneficiary is asked to prepare a written application which is both posted and e-mailed to the foundation. Upon receipt of this formal application, agreement is formally sought from all three foundation trustees to the application. Upon agreement, a payment authorisation is prepared which is signed by two trustees before the payment is made electronically by one of the trustees. This process has been agreed by our accountants and auditors. After payment, a formal letter is requested from the beneficiary stating that the funds have been received and that they will be used for the specified purpose. Copies of all these documents are made available to our accountant and auditors.

 

HCF does not actively advertise its activities. This is (a) because we normally do not need to raise funds and (b) our funds tend to be substantially committed to certain projects or types of project, so there is no need to seek new potential beneficiaries.

 

Examples of projects to be supported by HCF include:

 

KENYA

KUAP Street Children Program

A program initiated by people who live in the slum areas around Kisumu in Western Kenya to help young people who run away from their rural homes and go to live on the streets of Kisumu. HCF will help with the operational costs of this initiative, which has been active in Kisumu for more than twenty-five years. More than three hundred street children are to be found in Kisumu at any time and the program encourages them to leave the street and take shelter at the KUAP location, where a rehabilitation program lasting about three months helps the youth regain their confidence and self-esteem, undertake some basic education and ideally will return the children to their homes, which are sometimes hundreds of kilometres outside Kisumu. For those children who cannot be returned home, help is given via longer term educational initiatives at KUAP and by the Kenyan education system.

  

USA

Project Destiny of Pittsburgh

Destiny is a project aimed at helping inner city youth, primarily of African American origin, in the North Side of Pittsburgh. With the entrenched issues of poverty, discrimination and drug and alcohol use, too many young people have little chance of experiencing a normal family life and are easily led up a wrong path. Destiny endeavours to help such youth by offering them mentoring, developmental after school and weekend activities as well as longer term programs during the protracted school summer holidays

 

USA

Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh

HCF helps by financially assisting the Children’s Hospital with some of its health outreach activities in the more disadvantaged areas of Pittsburgh.