Running RAFT - musings of a CEO: Making a profit

The charity sector is also known as the not-for-proft sector. The assumption is that we don’t operate in order to make a profit. This doesn’t mean that we don’t work like a business. On the contrary, if we didn’t act in a business like way, RAFT would not be making best use of our money - the money you donate to us. Or as I prefer to think of it - the money you entrust or invest with us so that we can achieve what we have promised to do which is carry out research that will benefit those who have suffered serious injuries e.g. from burns.

Sometimes charities spend more money than they have as income which means that they have to use their reserves (or savings) in order to make sure that all the work can still continue even if there are less funds coming in than expected. This happened to RAFT last year when we received nearly £870,000 in donations and spent just over £976,000.

So what did we spend the money on?

Well 73% of the money went to pay for the medical research that we do. In other words, for every £1 we receive 73p goes directly to fund research and 27p goes to pay for fundraising and the costs of running an organisation (e.g. auditors, phone bills, etc.)

It would be lovely if we could give the whole £1 to research but it costs money to raise money and RAFT is dependent on donations - we don’t get Government funding. Which is why we are so grateful when people raise funds for us - as it reduces the cost of fundraising. However we try to be as efficient as possible in fundraising and for every £1 we spend, we raise another £3.

In 2012 we will continue to be effective and efficient. I strongly believe that, as a Charity CEO, regardless of the legal obligations, it would not be morally right if we didn’t spend your donations wisely.