Irish Times compares fundraising costs of 17 charities
Howard Lake | 22 January 2016 | News
A report in the Irish Times has compared fundraising expenditure by 17 charities. At the top of the list is The National Council for the Blind in Ireland which, claims the newspaper, spends a third of its income on fundraising.
At the other end of the scale the report showed that elderly charity Alone spent nothing on fundraising and St Vincent de Paul, one of Ireland’s largest fundraising charities, spent just 1% on fundraising.
The report, which surveyed 17 charities, focused on how much a charity spent on its services for every €1 donated which included fundraising and governance. On that criteria, the Irish Heart Foundation, with a spend of 28 cents for every euro on fundraising and 8 cents on governance, had the lowest amount allocated to charitable services at 64 cents.
Other charities reporting a higher spend on fundraising were the Irish Cancer Society (25 cents) and the Samaritans (24.5 cents).
The Irish Times’ report acknowledges that there is no standard definition of the expenditure categories so charities may not be comparing the same things when it comes to costs. Another factor in the percentage spent on fundraising is the amount a charity receives from government, with those charities receiving less state income having to spend more to raise money.
Charities which have a charity shop network also typically spend more on fundraising because shops have high overheads, the report notes.
Image: pie charts by Iliveinoctober on Shutterstock.com
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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.