‘I never dreamed I would live somewhere like this,’ says Pratty, 52, a dalit woman in Tamil Nadu, south India. ‘My new house means that I do not have to live in fear any more.’
More than 80 per cent of the £90.9 million/€135 we spent in 2006/07 went directly on our work to end poverty and injustice – so that people like Pratty are more secure when another disaster strikes.
We operate mainly through local organisations which know best how to tackle the poverty they see every day, respond during emergencies and challenge their governments. The £50.6 million/€74.9 million we gave our 716 partners in 2006/07 made us one of the UK’s largest grant-making organisations. Grants to our partners was 56 per cent of the year’s total expenditure.
Our emergency work is not just about clearing up the mess. Increasingly, we are spending money to prevent disasters.
Good in a crisis
We spent £27.8 million/€41.3 million in 2006/07 responding to emergencies. In the Middle East, East Africa, Niger and elsewhere we gave essential emergency relief. But our emergency work is not just about clearing up the mess. Increasingly, we are spending money to prevent disasters. Across south Asia – in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka – we have helped half a million people rebuild their homes and livelihoods after the tsunami. In the process, we’ve made sure their homes are stronger than ever, that they have early warning systems and that they know where to flee to when disaster strikes.
There for the long haul
More than a third of our spending funded long-term development. We support a huge range of local organisations – from the Movement of the Landless in Brazil, fighting for justice for people who are denied land that is rightfully theirs, to our partner the Centre Ecologique Albert Schweitzer in Burkina Faso which is using new solar technologies to create clean energy. We support women’s councils in Afghanistan, human rights monitoring in the Gaza Strip and sustainable agriculture in Bangladesh.
Taking it to the top
But we know that change is about more than on-the-ground development. Change needs to happen at the top. That’s why we, alongside our partners, put pressure on governments and international institutions to make policies work for poor communities. There’s no clearer example of the need to campaign than with the issue of climate change. Innovation on the ground to protect people from the worst effects of global warming has to be matched by cuts in the carbon emissions that are responsible for causing the problem in the first place – lobbying governments can help make this happen.
Just over ten per cent of our expenditure this year went on education, advocacy and campaigning. We worked with business on climate change, and lobbied governments on international trade, on justice in the Middle East and on human rights in Colombia. Our campaigners grew in number, to around 100,000. You can join us – sign up here.
Spending money to make money
We spent nearly £14.4 million/€21.4 million on fundraising in 2006/07, helping us boost our income from committed giving by 14.6%. The costs of the general running of the organisation, which we call governance, came to £0.6 million/€0.9 million. This includes what we spend on our internal auditors, measuring our organisational impact, the costs of the board and director and other staff responsible for strategic management. It doesn’t include administration or fundraising and communications costs.
In 2006/07 we made grants of:
- £16.9 million/€25 million to 249 organisations in Africa
- £25.8 million/€38.2 million to 217 organisations in Asia and the Middle East
- £6.8 million/€10.1 million to 152 organisations in Latin America and the Caribbean
- £1.1 million/€1.6 million to 98 UK, Irish and international organisations.
Full circle: a year's spending
 | | Expenditure | | | | | | |
| | | £m | | €m | | % |
| Charitable activities | | | | | | |
| 1 | Development | | 36.0 | | 53.4 | | 39% |
| 2 | Emergencies | | 27.8 | | 41.3 | | 30% |
| 3 | Campaigning, advocacy and education | | 12.1 | | 18.0 | | 13% |
| Total spending on charitable activities | | 75.9 | | 112.7 | | |
| | | | | | | |
| Other expenditure | | | | | | |
| 4 | Fundraising | | 14.4 | | 21.4 | | 15% |
| 5 | Governance | | 0.6 | | 0.9 | | 1% |
| Total expenditure | | 90.9 | | 135.0 | | |
For a copy of our 2006/07 annual report and audited accounts, click here.