"When you work for a charity, it's a privileged position to be in. The message should be sent out to the third sector that this is unacceptable."
A charity founder has set up a “no trust” policy at her organisation – after it fell victim to a heartless fraudster.
Callous Lindsay MacCallum (Pictured above, right) stole nearly £86,000 from a cancer group set up in memory of her former best friend's daughter, and has now been caged for three years.
The 61 year old defrauded the charity Rainbow Valley over the course of a decade, after launching it with Angela MacVicar.
MacCallum also embezzled £9,505 from the Anthony Nolan Trust, a stem cell donation charity.
Falkirk Sheriff Court heard how MacCallum, of Aberfoyle, Perthshire, forged signatures of charity staff and rerouted cash from fundraising accounts for her own use between 2011 and 2021.
She was told by a sheriff she had "systematically and deliberately" perpetrated "calculating" frauds on the third sector organisations, and "betrayed" cancer victims.
Rainbow Valley was set up by MacCallum and Angela MacVicar seven years after the latter’s daughter Johanna died in 2005.
The former friends met when MacCallum was a fundraiser for the Anthony Nolan Trust.
Johanna had been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia, a type of cancer which affects the white blood cells and bone marrow, at just 16 years old, and became a well known campaigner.
When MacCallum was made redundant by the Anthony Nolan Trust, the two women set up Rainbow Valley, which still exists and which empowers and educates people affected by cancer.
Unbeknown to Angela MacVicar and the rest of the charity’s staff, McCallum was siphoning off cash to fund a lavish lifestyle, which included holiday homes abroad and in Scotland.
Speaking to the BBC after MacCallum was sentenced, she said the trauma she and Rainbow Valley have been through has lessons for the third sector, and for fundraisers in particular.
She said: "Within the charity, I've put in place a 'no-trust' policy, which sounds awful - but you question, no matter how senior and you question it until you get the answer that you need to hear.
"When you work for a charity, it's a privileged position to be in. The message should be sent out to the third sector that this is unacceptable.
"The message the sentence sent out is that this should not be tolerated. It brings me no joy to know she's in jail but the message is out there that it won't be tolerated."
Swindling MacCallum had previously boasted of her ‘honesty’ and ‘life of service’ to Scotland’s third sector.
She was nailed in August 2022 after Angela's other daughter Kendall, who worked in the charity's office, noticed payments going out to MacCallum.
However, in January that year she brazenly boasted about her virtues as a fundraiser.
Speaking to the Charity Voices podcast, MacCallum said: “It takes a certain kind of person to be a fundraiser — you have to want to serve.
“It’s been a great life to live. When you have grown-up children, you like to think you are a role model for them.
“I’m also proud that every step of the way I have acted with authenticity and integrity.
“That is really, really important to me.”
Find out more about Rainbow Valley and support its work here.
