100% Giving
Posted by Jake Anders on February 8th, 2011
For one month only, the nice people at PayPal are paying our running costs, so 100% of your money goes directly to fighting poverty.
Why have you done this?
The initiative follows a new Oxfam report showing that people are often deterred from giving because part of their donation usually goes towards the charity’s running costs. The 100% giving report reveals that 72 per cent of Britons believe running costs eat up a significant part of their donation, whilst 65 per cent admit they have been put off supporting charities because of these costs.
There is also a widespread misconception about the amount of money that is allocated to essential running costs, with most people believing it is more than three times the actual figure spent.
The objective is to attract new donors to support Oxfam, so that we can then show them the value of their donation, the importance of the work we do in the long term and the necessity of our vital running costs.
What are running costs?
Running costs essentially means those costs that support rather than actively implement our charity work. Running costs are a vital part of the work we do and without them Oxfam would not exist as none of the funds donated to our charity work would be able to get to those who need it.
Example of running costs:
Oxfam buys thousands of pounds worth of machinery and tools to provide safe water and sanitation where it is most needed in emergency situations. In order to do this and to get it to where it is most needed, we need staff who know what the best equipment to buy is, a finance team to help with the transactions, a team to sort out insurance, transport and logistics, and HR, insurance and health provisions to ensure our staff can get out into the field and work safely and effectively. In short, behind every single one of our responses and activities is an equally vital network of people to make this possible. Without this, the equipment we use to help save thousands of lives would still be sitting in a warehouse and would never get to where it’s needed.
We do all that we can to ensure that our running costs are as low as possible, so we can maximise the amount that is spent on charity work for every donation – in fact, we have managed to bring down our running costs from 21p in every £1 in 2006 to today’s figure of just 19p.
What can I do?
Explore – You can find out more above 100% Giving at www.oxfam.org.uk/giving.
Give – Click here to give now.
PS. Appropriately enough for a post about 100% giving, this is also the 100th post on our blog. Thanks for sticking with us!
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