Project 001: Religious Charitable Funding Review

Background: It is a common view that donations to religious organisations is a worthy cause as they do so much for charity, even though they are not themselves registered charities and are not therefore governed by the rules pertaining to charities. This project is aimed at clarifying that view with actual evidence.

Project Objective: To compare the amount of money contributed to charitable causes by registered charities and religious organisations that are not registered charities (eg. Church of England).

Scope: The following religious organisations and charities will be reviewed:

• Church of England (not a registered charity)
• Oxfam (Registered Charity)
• Help The Aged (Registered Charity)
• NSPCC (Registered Charity)

Deliverable(s): i) A document containing the findings, references and conclusions. ii) A brief summary statement for public consumption (eg. that can be used via flyers, posted on websites, etc)

Help Needed: Persons with finance or accounting qualifications who can review my findings below and confirm/correct them. Please use the Comments facility to post your assistance/contribution. Thanks.

REFERENCES:

Church of England Financial Overview (Webpage)
Church of England Published Accounts 2000-2004 (PDF document)

Oxfam Annual Review 2005 - 2006 (PDF document - page 27 has financial information)
Help the Aged Annual Report and Accounts 2005 (PDF document)
NSPCC Report and Accounts 2006 (PDF document)

FINDINGS (for review):


CONCLUSION (so far):

Whilst the Church of England receives considerably more in donations than these 3 well known charities combined, it contributes considerably less.

If we combine the total donations from all parties and their contributions to good causes we see the following situation:

Although the church receives 71% of the total donations to these groups it only contributes 14% of the total expenditure to good causes from these groups.