Our Finances

Rising unemployment and skyrocketing food prices: the financial crisis has only increased the need for our work to get every child their rights to healthcare, freedom from hunger, education and protection. In 2008/09 our income grew by £55.2 million, to £216 million. We worked to make every penny count.

On average, over the last five years

from every £1 you gave us we spent 85p on direct charitable expenditure to benefit children and used the remaining 15p to raise the next £1.

We had just begun to celebrate that all our half-year indicators were up – income surpassing our targets, a record number of new supporters, growing public and media recognition, and our child survival campaign launch – when we came face to face with the global recession.

It’s the stark reality for all charities, and we’re no exception. Changes to exchange rates boosted income for the year but the impact of the financial crisis on our spending on children has been especially difficult. The pound typically purchased between 20% and 30% less than in 2007/08. In a climate of rising food prices, this has had a very direct bearing on our programmes.

Despite the gloomy financial picture, we beat our two key financial targets for the year:

  • We increased our income from governments to £76.8m – up 32%, against the 12% increase we had aimed for
  • Income from voluntary funds – including partnerships with corporations, major individual donors and the new generation of major foundations – rose to £79.7 million, just short of our ambitious 20% growth target.

An amazing generosity

Overall, income grew to £216 million, our highest ever, thanks in large part to generous donations for emergencies such as Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar.

Highlights during the year included:

  • the thousands of people who supported our work with regular donations and one-off gifts, raising more than £28 million – well over our original target of £24 million and a testimony to the generosity of the British public
  • £15.6 million left to us by supporters in their wills – exceeding our target for legacies by 20%
  • recruiting 36,000 new donors, including 6,000 of the people who had joined our ‘Enough is Enough’ text campaign calling for a ceasefire in Gaza
  • working with our colleagues in the US and in partnership with the Academy for Educational Development to secure £10 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for Alive and Thrive, a project to reduce child mortality through improved feeding of infants and children
  • the £11.8 million we received from companies, trusts and major donors, £1.5 million more than last year.

Our aims:

To double our income by 2017 in order to help more children, make more impact, have a louder voice

In 2008/09:

Our income rose to £216 million – a 34% increase on the previous year.

Governments and international organisations

We received the highest amount ever – nearly £102 million – from governments, multilateral bodies such as the European Union, and international agencies such as the United Nations. Again, this was largely to support our response to emergencies in Myanmar, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On top of the income for this year we also secured multiyear development contracts from governments valued at £79.5 million, a 32% increase on last year. At a time of recession, we owe enormous thanks to our government donors, particularly DFID and the European Commission, for this boost in long-term funding.

Working in Alliance

Our working relationships with other Save the Children Alliance members across the world were closer than ever.

In 2008/09 we raised £12.8 million for other Alliance members in countries where we don’t have a presence or where we’re not the lead member – virtually doubling last year’s contribution. In return, Alliance members raised £13.4 million for our work in countries where we are the lead member.

In total we received over £19 million in donations and grants from our Alliance colleagues – 79% more than last year.

We’re also collaborating more closely with our Alliance colleagues on planning and reporting, financial accounting and calculating the number of children we’ve reached.

Our charitable expenditure in 2008/09

Hunger £63.0m 35%
Education £46.1m 26%
Protection £36.4m 20%
Health £24.2m 13%
Information, campaigning and awareness £10.1m 6%

Our spending

We spent more on our charitable activities this year than ever before – £179.8 million altogether, ensuring children are free from hunger, receive an education and healthcare, and are protected in an unsafe world. We spent £88.7 million on our emergencies work, up massively from £52.5 million in 2007/08. We had to invest nearly £20 million in our fundraising to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive environment.

A cold climate

In the cold climate of the recession, we’ve taken some tough decisions to make sure we stay true to our aims of helping the world’s most vulnerable children. We’re cutting our ongoing operating costs by about 10% and will continue this tough look at all our work to give us an even stronger basis going forward.

We’re not losing any of our ambition. We will carry on with our plans to invest in a global campaign to stop children dying. But we know we have a responsibility to our donors and to the children we support to be as prudent as possible.