PRESS RELEASE
13 June 2023
Organisation funded by public charity
THE VALENTIN HAÜY FOUNDATION
2017 to 2020 fiscal years
The Court of Accounts ensures, during its audits of organisations making public appeals for
donations, that the funds collected are in line with these organisations’ stated objectives.
Depending on the case, the Court either certifies the compliance of these appeals or issues a
declaration of non-compliance.
The Valentin Haüy Foundation (VHF), which serves blind and visually impaired people, was
created by the Valentin Haüy
Association with an endowment of €95 million, and recognised
as a public charity in July 2012. In its articles of association, its purpose is very similar to that
of the founding association. In practice, its main activity is to manage its assets, both
immovable and movable property, and to use the income from these assets to finance the
association’s activities and, to a very small but growing extent (around 10%), some of its
own projects. However, it has not developed a real activity of collecting donations and
legacies (which amounted to around €1 million in the 2017 and 2018 financial years, and
half of this sum in 2019 and 2020). Now an umbrella foundation, it welcomes a small number
of shelter foundations under its aegis, with limited activity. The audit took place at the same
time as that of the association of the same name, whose report the Court is publishing
today.
A foundation whose independence is not respected by its founding association
The Court emphasised that the foundation’s current articles of association keep it under the
influence of the Valentin Haüy Association (VHA), thereby derogating from the principle of
independence that all foundations must have from their founders. This dependence has also
resulted in insufficiently selective and documented procedures for the funding that the
foundation allocates to the VHA. The foundation cannot, in the future, make commitments to
support the association with a predetermined amount.
Shortcomings in the treatment of obligations relating to appeals for public donations
From the outset, the foundation has exempted itself from its obligations under the law of 7
August 1991. Considering that it was not appealing to the generosity of the public, it refrained,
throughout the period under review from filing a prior declaration of appeals for donations,
even though it offers the possibility of making a donation on its website.
Above all, it appends
to its financial accounts a use-of-funds statement that is incomplete in more ways than one.
Bequests are not properly accounted for and the income from the assets of its founding
endowment is not recorded as public donations. However, the assets that made up the
donation made by the Valentin Haüy Association to the foundation mainly came from gifts made
to the association, and were therefore derived from the public donations. They cannot be
considered to have lost the status of public donation by virtue of being transferred from the
association to the foundation established by said association.
With regard to the bequests received by its sheltered foundation APAM, the foundation
considered that they were the result of old testamentary provisions from donors who had acted
spontaneously, without a public appeal for donations. However, in the absence of any evidence
of such a context, it should have recorded them, by default, as having come from such an
appeal, and accounted for their use in accordance with the conditions laid down for such a case.
As a result of these omissions, there are many gaps in the contents of the VHF’s use-of-funds
statement, and consequently in the information provided to donors.
Adequate asset management procedures, limited activity as a shelter foundation
The foundation manages its immovable and movable assets appropriately, using external
service providers and regularly reviewing the results and relevance of its investment choices.
The VHF has only marginally been active as a shelter foundation. The splitting up of associations
active in the field, but also the attachment of each to its history and independence, seems to
limit the prospects for the VHF to host other shelter foundations under its aegis. In any event,
the VHF must be aware of its control obligations with regard to the activities of the shelter
foundations it already has under its aegis: in this respect, it has not paid sufficient attention to
the risks of conflicts of interest in one of its sheltered foundations, nor, in another, to ensuring
that the use of funds complies with the purpose of the collection of said funds.
At the end of its audit, the Court found that the expenditure incurred by the Valentin Haüy
Foundation 2017 and 2020 complied with the objectives of the public appeal for donations and
the objectives of the foundation.
However, the Court qualified its opinion with one reservation and five recommendations.
Read the report
PRESS CONTACTS:
Julie Poissier
◼
Head of Media Relations
◼
Tel.
+33 (0)6 87 36 52 21
◼
julie.poissier@ccomptes.fr
Eran Guterman
◼
Press Relations & Social Media Officer
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Tel.
+33 (0)6 11 41 46 64
◼
eran.guterman@ccomptes.fr
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