Charity spent 90% of income on fundraising and administration
Howard Lake | 16 June 2009 | News
BBC Northern Ireland has reported that the Ireland Air Ambulance charity has spent up to 90% of its income on fundraising and administration.
The public has so far donated £700,000 towards a helicopter air ambulance charity since it was established in Ireland. The charity collects money on both sides of the border, mostly through collection boxes.
The charity will depend on an agreement with the health departments in Northern Ireland and the Republic if it is to operate the service but admits it has no such agreement.
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Northern Ireland Health Minister Michael McGimpsey said he did not believe there was sufficient demand for the service.
“Frankly, I am bemused that this is progressing the way it is,” Mr McGimpsey said.
“We are collecting money for an ambulance helicopter that, as far as I am aware, there has been no order placed for, there has been no understanding created for and actually, when I look hard at it, there is no real need for.”
“The proposed helicopter that you are talking about operates only in good weather and in daylight.
“Currently, the demand, according to the ambulance service, is not there.”
The IAA has said it hopes to launch the service in November, although to date it has not found anywhere to base its helicopter.
Ireland Air Ambulance (IAA) has issued a reply to the BBC story on its website. The statetment says the charity started in Ireland in 2007 ‘following a personal investment made directly by the current Directors of the Charity.’
The statement continues, ‘to run a single Air Ambulance and the supporting Charity (the revenue generators) it costs approximately £1,600,000/€1,824,000 per annum IAA was scheduled to go ‘Operational’ in late 2010, but through careful development and stakeholder partnerships, will be now launching in November 2009.
‘To date the IAA has raised approximately £700,000/€798,000 of which well in excess of £500,000/€570,000 has been directly invested back into the operational platforms of the Charity to ensure a sustainable service, with £140,000/€159,600 being placed into reserve and nearly £40,000/€45,600 en-route to the reserve account at the time of this release.
‘In year one nearly 90% of funds received were directly employed to ensure that the Charity got onto the strong position for growth that it has today, however given this investment in infrastructure IAA confidently forecast that within a few years over 90% of funds received will be directly spent on running the Helicopter and Medical Crew with the remaining 10% being used to run the entire fundraising and administration aspects of the Charity’.
The charity’s website provides a copy of its 2007/08 accounts on its website. These show an income of £194,139, with the cost of generating funds £175,027. The accounts are signed by two directors, one of whom is the wife of the Operations Director of the charity.
www.irelandairambulance.org
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.