Charity administrative/overhead costs - reliable data?

Dave!

Hey guys,

Not sure where I should put this, but ye lot are a knowledgeable bunch so I'm sure ye can point me in the right direction.

I'm looking to make a charitable donation on someone's behalf for Xmas... It's one of their Kris Kindle requests!

Anywho, I want to make sure we're getting 'value for money', in that, because it's gonna be a relatively small donation, I'd like as much of it to go directly to a charitable cause as possible, rather than on admin, marketing, etc.

So I'm wondering a couple of things:

1. Is there some reliable website with the percentage breakdowns for registered charities in Ireland/UK?
2. I presume charities are all audited fairly regularly, so what is the body that does this, and do they bring out an annual report? Where can I access this?

Nice one!

Victor

http://wellsforzoe.wordpress.com/2007/01/04/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-registered-charity-in-ireland/

http://www.revenue.ie/en/business/authorised-charities.html

Most reputable charities of any size would publish their accounts.

expectationlost

theres is this site which has some of the charities figures but doesn't have that neat percentage number you're looking for http://beta.irishnonprofits.ie/nonprofits-database/carmichael-centre-for-voluntary-groups/financial

SugarHigh

Is the charity with the smallest admin overheads necessarily the best charity? Maybe the administration allows the money to spent in a more productive manner? So while a smaller percentage of your money reaches who you want it is more productive.

edanto

@Dave! It's a great approach you're taking, but it's a complicated question that you are asking.

There are some agreed guidelines for presenty charity accounts (ie which expenses count as admin and which don't) - they're known as SORP, so if you are reading a charity accounts and see that they are produced in accordance with SORP, that is one measure of credibility. The idea behind SORP is that you might be able to compare different charities that do similar type of work.

But, it's a very complicated question because not all charities do similar work. For example, one might do a lot of disaster relief, distribution of items; and that charity would have a different cost base than a charity which is also doing development work - training people in agriculture/light industry, doing health and education work.

The irishnonprofits.ie site linked above is a really welcome initiative, since it will make the accounts of all Irish nonprofits available for free online (well, all of those that are registered as companies, which is the vast majority) That means you can go through the accounts yourself and see if you are happy with how they are spending the funds raised.

Personally, I've worked in this sector for the past 5 years, and I could highly recommend the two places that I've worked since I've pored over the accounts myself and know that we are spending just the right amount [highly subjective!] on administrative overheads to keep the programmes running and give a level of audit control to ensure that nothing is being misappropriated.