The Karira Trust is not a political animal, and nor should it be; but it’s hard not to notice the current furore surrounding Joseph Kony. There are lots of elements to the story: war crimes; the distressing continuing use of child soldiers around the world; the apparent impotence of international lawmakers; and phenomena such as social media hysteria and celebrity campaign endorsement – the list goes on.
But what is perhaps most interesting about Konymania to us as a charity is the spotlight that it has cast on Invisible Children Inc. – a non-profit organisation based in San Diego. It is under their auspices that the ‘KONY 2012’ campaign is being run, and for whom Joseph Russell made his undoubtedly compelling film of the same name. If only the campaign name didn’t sound so much like positive electioneering – ‘Vote KONY 2012‘…!
There’s no argument that the international community has a right to demand that Joseph Kony answer for his alleged actions. This blog (from The Educated Field Negro), however, raises questions about the financial management of Invisible Children Inc. It’s not The Karira Trust’s place to comment on the veracity of the blog or the practices of other non-profit bodies – they have their own checks and balances and their own reporting requirements, and we don’t have a full-time Research Officer. Yet. But TEFN has made it clearer to us than ever how transparent a charity needs to be about its finances (our reporting responsibilities to the Charity Commission notwithstanding).
So we’re working to reveal to our supporters as much as we possibly can about our income and expenditure. We hope to release that information via our website within the next few weeks.
The real question for us is going to be how to classify our income and expenditure. We can tell you now, very happily, that since January 2010 we have raised over £26,000 and, as we operate with comparatively little working capital between projects, have spent a similar sum. Sounds impressive, no? It certainly does to us! But there’s a problem: around half of our expenditure has been on flights, accommodation and insurance. So our ‘overheads’ (including those travel costs) come out at something around 50% of our total income – which is clearly low. But the £26,000 income figure includes the fees paid by volunteers. In fact, conveniently for all of us non-mathematicians, around half of our income has come from fees. We ringfence the 50% that comes in as fees for volunteers’ travel and accommodation costs; the 50% that comes in as donations pays for everything else. We spend very little money on promotion – and, for example, the Trustees don’t reclaim travel costs for meetings – so we estimate at this stage that 10% or less out of the 50% (i.e. 10% of our overall income, but coming from one ringfenced side – still with us?) of our income that we raise from donations goes on overheads. The remaining money goes directly to local suppliers and contractors to work on the project. These percentages are starting to sound much better but…can we then, in all conscience, still claim the 50% that we receive from fees as ‘fundraising’? Hmm. An agenda point for our next meeting!
In short, please bear with us; we keep meticulous records (and are always happy to answer any question relating to our finances or your donation), so we just need to answer a few questions of statistics before revealing all – we owe you, our supporters, total disclosure.
Oh – while you’re reading this and, if you’re in the vicinity of London, contact us if you’d like to book tickets for this Saturday’s musical soirée in Purley – it promises to be a great night!
