How we are run and your donations.
Adventure Ashram aims to be as transparent as possible to all its stakeholders. Sharing how much money we give away each year is not enough for us, we want to share how much we raise in total, and how much it costs us to raise this money and monitor and evaluate the impact the money has had on the lives of children and their families in India.
Below is a table showing the monies we have raised, spend on running the organisation and how much we have given away.
For further detail on the figures and to read the trustees report for each year, please click here to go to the charity commission's website where our accounts are held.
A message from our Chair, Colin Taylor
"I am incredibly proud of the achievements of our small but mighty charity. I have been involved since 2007. 10 years on Adventure Ashram has grown and evolved and to date has raised over £1 million. Myself and the trustees recently calculated that over the past decade 84p in every £1 given to Adventure Ashram has been put to work improving health and education in India. We are all delighted by this sum. Looking to the future, we need to be realistic at how possible it is for us to maintain this high percentage.
Whilst Adventure Ashram continues to be led by an active and fully committed trustee board who volunteer their time and skills, we now also have a paid part-time staff team of 3 (CEO, Project Manager & Fundraiser and Finance Manager). They are based in an office which we rent to not only accomodate them but also the busy rota of volunteers and interns that engage with Adventure Ashram throughout the year. Myself and the trustees are keen to share how we generate the unrestricted income we require to cover our running costs. Please see this explaination opposite.
In the beginning our fundraising was successfully encouraged by the adventure company that founded our charity, with multiple fundraising adventures running each year in South India. Now we stand independantly as a fundraising and grant giving organisation with the capacity to run one of these incredible adventurers every other year. The effect of this will, quite naturally, be that the 84 pence in every pound ratio will go down. We will watch this figure closely and myself, the trustees and the team will do everything in our power to keep our costs as low as possible and our fundraising income as high as we can. It is so important to us and the projects we support. We thank you, our supporters for helping us achieve everything we have to date and for your future commitment. Let's continue to adventure with purpose.".
Our income, governance costs and grants given since 2006.
It now costs around £70,000 to run Adventure Ashram each year. It is our best practise to have 6 months running costs in reserves and also a seperate emergency account, should anything happen to one of the charities we support. Our reserve account is only at 1/3 of what it should be. All contributions from the wonderful adventurers taking part in Back To The Future 2017 will be deposited in our reserves and we aim to have them replenished by the end of 2017.
The money that we use to cover our running costs is unrestricted income and core cost recovery on our restricted donations.
Unrestricted income is generate through a number of ways, including Gift Aid, corporate support of Adventure Ashram, profit from items sold in our shop and sponsorship of our various events.
From Restricted Donations, 10% is retained by Adventure Ashram as core cost recovery, as is Gift Aid. For example, if somebody donates £12.50 to sponsor the education of a child for 1 month, £1.25 is retained for core cost recovery and £3.12 claimed via Gift Aid from the government.
The 10% retained are taken on the total donation, not the donation less the charges by companies such as Go Cardless, Stripe, Paypal or Crowdfunder. On larger donations from supporters giving major gifts or charitable trusts, the core cost recovery and gift aid implications are discussed and agreed at a meeting with both the CEO or fundraiser and a trustee. An MOU will be written and agreed with each gift and signed by both the supporter and Adventure Ashram.
If you have any questions about how we run, please email Colin Taylor who will take your questions to the next board meeting. Colin's email address is colin@adventureashram.org
What it costs to run Adventure Ashram
Our forecast for 2016-2017 Core Costs
