Atoma Union C.I.C. / Atoma C.I.C. and Youthworksunion C.I.C. - fundraising at stations in London and possibly elsewhere

I've been making notes about the various Community Interest Companies (CICs) which are involved in selling magazines or otherwise fundraising outside various stations in London and elsewhere. I've been approached by people from these companies as I pass through Farringdon and have been surprised by the volume of "chuggers" operating there (I counted 11 on one visit). 

These are not charities (so not strictly 'chuggers', a pejorative portmanteau of charity and mugger) but several members of the staff are quite persistent in getting your attention, telling you that you've dropped something (even if only your smile), or complimenting you. Many people find this sort of fundraising makes them uncomfortable. 

This post is about Atoma Union C.I.C. / Atoma C.I.C. and Youthworksunion C.I.C.

Also in this series are posts that are written to try and help me get a sense of the various different organisations under similarly-named umbrellas.

• Inside Success (4 companies)
  
• We R Blighty (2 companies)
• Atoma / Youth Works Union (3 companies) - this post
  

What are the organisations?
1. Atoma C.I.C. (12773310) - incorporated on 28 July 2020 for the purposes of "46180 - Agents specialised in the sale of other particular products". The accounts are delayed (were due on 30 April 2024) though the company is still listed as active. Run by Omokehinde Oreoluwa Aladenola and Ayoola David Osaruwvense Obisesan.

It looks like moves were made to have the company struck off voluntarily in 2024 but there was a court-ordered restoration on 3 February 2025 (PDF).

2. Youth Atoma Enterprise Ltd. (15045868) - this is a private limited company, not a CIC. It was incorporated on 2nd August 2023 for the purposes of "87900 - Other residential care activities not elsewhere classified" and "88910 - Child day-care activities" so may be quite unrelated to the companies above. Its accounts are delayed (due on 2 May 2025) and it's run by Omokehinde Aladenola (Ayoola David Osaruwvense Obisesan resigned in 2024). Formerly named Youth Atoma Enterprice Ltd.

3. Atoma Union C.I.C. (15686104) - incorporated on 27 April 2024 for "47990 - Other retail sale not in stores, stalls or markets", accounts not due until January 2026, run by Omokehinde Aladenola.

4. Youthworksunion C.I.C. (15790735) - incorporated on 20 June 2024 for the purposes of "47990 - Other retail sale not in stores, stalls or markets", run by Kenny Aladen.

Companies 2 and 3 both operate from a CV2 company address post code (#1 from DA8) and there are quite a few other companies operating from that address including #4, run by someone else with a slightly different surname. 

The website for Atoma Union says that "We are currently undergoing a name change from Atoma Union to Youth Works Union. This is to clear any misunderstanding if you see a representative of ours using a different logo . We are just currently in a transition period.". 

Alamy has a photograph purporting to be someone from Youth Works Union selling Uplifterz magazines (I'm not sure how the two companies are related), also Alamy has mis-labelled them as a charity.

Appointments records
Because each company has its own correspondence address (this is completely normal) it means that the records of the officers can too so there are multiple appointments records for Mr Aladenola.  

Omokehinde Aladenola aka Omokehinde Oreoluwa Aladenola has three appointment records: this record lists two appointments including Atoma Union C.I.C., this record lists one appointment for Youth Atoma Enterprise Ltd and this one (which includes his middle name) lists one appointment, for Atoma C.I.C. 

Misc
There is also a seemingly unrelated company (dissolved) called Union Atoma Ltd (14405810), included for name-search completeness.

Community Interest Companies (CICs) selling magazines, collecting donations ('chugging') at many of London's stations

The term 'chugger' means 'charity mugger' and refers to people who are either paid by a charity directly to do face to face fundraising or, more commonly, are paid by a third company to which this has been outsourced. There are plenty of complaints to be had about the methods used by chuggers, some of whom even call at people's homes, but they are at least fundraising for a genuine purpose even if they annoy lots of people while doing so.

Community Interest Companies (CICs) are different but have followed a similar pattern. They are not regulated by the Charity Commission and have much less oversight on them. Consequently there are one or two that are or have been under investigation for raising money without a permit or for harrassing members of the public to give them money. They also fall between several regulatory gaps which makes it harder for authorities to do much about them.

Here are some of the CICs I've encountered or heard about.

• Inside Success Ltd Private limited Company 15932606

• Inside Success Union C.I.C. Community Interest Company 10174759 Accounts and Confirmation statement overdue - the Fundraising Regulator investigated people working for this one (in January 2024, and March 2023, they've also featured on ITV news and in the Daily Mail about how they spend their 3 million turnover; Manchester fined them for fundraising without a licence)

• Uplifterz CIC Community Interest Company 15835071- there's also Uplifters Agency Ltd (16102520) run by the same person.
  

• Uplifterz Union C.I.C. Community Interest Company 15944885 (this is run by a different person from Uplifterz C.I.C., but from the same business address or virtual office)
  

• Atoma Union C.I.C. Community Interest Company 15686104
  Atoma Union's website says "We are currently undergoing a name change from Atoma Union to Youth Works Union. This is to clear any misunderstanding if you see a representative of ours using a different logo . We are just currently in a transition period." though if it's the same Atoma Union as the one above they have different officers (but who share the same correspondence address).

• Atoma C.I.C. Community Interest Company 12773310 Accounts and Confirmation statement overdue

• Empoweryou Enterprise CIC Community Interest Company 15336620 Confirmation statement overdue
  

• Mentor Point Youth CIC Community Interest Company 14795768
  

• Youthworksunion C.I.C. Community Interest Company 15790735
  

• We R Blighty C.I.C. Community Interest Company 14349080 (Kent Police were looking into them for financial irregularities). One of the directors of this also runs Veterans in Need Ltd. Blighty's company records due on 30 June 2025. Edit: 16 July 2025: On 26 June this news story was published Veterans fundraising firm We R Blighty guilty of unlawful cash collections iNews.
  

• Safehaven Initiative CIC (16061849) / Safehaven Initiative Union CIC (16490068) I met these today at Farringdon station. I had a pleasant chat with the guy who was not trying to sell me a magazine (only wanted donations) but there was was no pressure. SI CIC was founded in Nov 2024 and SIU CIC onl last week, on 2nd June (!) so I'm not sure yet if this is a new thing that's genuine or just more of the same.

• Attentive Management Ltd (14610982) - 1 negative and 2 glowing reviews on Indeed. Overheard one at Woolwich using the phrase 'for my confidence' in his opening gambit which is something I've heard the people at Farringdon say, as in 'can I ask you something for my confidence?', practising public speaking or something like that. [Edit: added on 16 July 2025]
  

Plus at least one which has been dissolved.

• Inside Success UK CIC Community Interest Company 08237681

Edit 17 July 2025: Why can't anyone stop the fundraisers outside London stations? from LondonCentric https://www.londoncentric.media/p/inside-success-fundraisers-chuggers-london-railway-stations

How to avoid chuggers (aka "charity muggers" or face to face fundraisers)

Updated 30 October 2024 to take account of Community Interest Companies (CICs) like Inside Success or Uplifterz - those are not charities and will sell you magazines or ask for donations. Registered charities will usually try and get you to sign up for Direct Debits. CICs are not subject to the Charity Commission.

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This post is not intended to be snarky to everyone who works to raise money for charity by face to face engagement and fundraising. I'm sure many of them are nice people doing a worthwhile job that is actually successful at raising money. Good luck to them. Many of the people doing this job are... less pleasant to encounter.

I'm still not a fan of even the nicest ones though (I find being interrupted while out shopping very annoying) and while I can fairly easily brush off anyone who wants to chat to me in the street I'm aware that others find it harder.

They used to be a lot more persistent (late 90s / early 2000s) and would follow you down the street but they seem to have stopped doing that at least. I've been inspired by reading Dr Vicky Forster's thread about a recent annoying encounter she had, some of the replies too - eech.

There's rarely* a good reason to be actively rude to face to face fundraisers, they are just doing a job and you can say no - but in the unlikely event that they up the ante a bit here are some things you might like to have tucked away in your bag of ready-made responses. 

*OK if they become a bit too persistent then I might get a bit snippy. I was also pretty blunt to (and reported him) the one who told me to cheer up. (I'm not planning on being particularly polite to the newer CICs who are known to try and intimidate commuters).

If a firm "no, thank you" or "I'm not interested, thanks" doesn't suffice, feel free to be creative. Here are some suggestions which can be adapted to suit, depending on how irritated you're feeling.

• "I never hand over my bank details to strangers" (what happens if their clipboard or tablet is mislaid or stolen, why can't they give me their charity's bank details)? 

• "I never hand over money to strangers" / "I never make unplanned purchases"

• "I don't do direct debits" (this is really true for me, I don't)

• "I'd need to take some information so that I can do my 'due diligence'" - that means finding out how much is the CEO paid, if it is a charity what proportion of income is spent on research etc, checking their page on the charity commission website or Companies House, view their filings and reports (are they up to date?), see what ITV or Mail on Sunday have said about them - see below. If a CIC then I'm going to be a LOT more wary about them.

• "I'm recovering from an illness and really need / want to keep moving"

• "I have not been authorised to discuss [charitable giving] with you" or "I am not at liberty to discuss the matter" - worth a shot ;)

• "I'd need to check with my [partner]" (imaginary or otherwise) - not everyone is in a position to donate money and may want to check with someone first

• "I'd need to discuss with my [accountant / financial advisor] whether this is an effective / appropriate way for me to donate"

In some cases I may be happy for the chugger to give me the charity's bank details and if I want to set up a donation I could do that quite easily myself as a one-off or a standing order. I would be very unlikely to get involved with donating to the CICs as I'm not sure how they're regulated.

Further reading
ITV did a story on Inside Success / Inside Success Union in 2023 (here's a 3min summary video).

There's also this Mail on Sunday story about Inside Success CIC "Exposed: Where the £3million we hand over to anti-knife 'charities'' pushy High Street collectors REALLY ends up" from 25 May 2024.

I think Uplifterz CIC (incorporated July 2024) and Uplifterz Union C.I.C. (incorporated September 2024) are too new to have been written about, other than in this Mumsnet thread.