Where does my money go?

In 2006/7 19% of our total costs were for fundraising. This equates to 22.6 pence of every pound of total income we received and 24.5 pence of every pound of the income we received through fundraising activity

Fundraising costs ensure Asthma UK survives.

If we did not raise money we would not be able to conduct ground breaking research and provide life-saving services for people with asthma.

In order to generate these donations it is necessary to spend money communicating with potential and existing supporters – introducing them to our cause or reminding them how much we need their support. These communications are important as there are many competing demands on the money people have available to donate, if we did not do them Asthma UK’s cause may not be considered as pressing as others.

We seek to raise funds from a variety of sources in order to maximise the amounts of money raised and reduce reliance on a small number of funders, who, if they decided to put their support elsewhere, could leave Asthma UK in difficulty.

All our fundraising activity is carefully monitored to ensure that it is as cost efficient as possible and its effectiveness, both in the long and short terms, is regularly reviewed by senior management and the board of trustees.

Support costs ensure we are effective

To ensure as much money as possible goes to our work we have to be efficient and manage our organisation very effectively. The support costs spent on IT, human resources, and finance ensures Asthma UK is ‘fit for purpose’ to support our mission to improve the health and well-being of the 5.2 million people in the UK with asthma.  We are however keenly aware of the relationship between our efficiency and effectiveness and the need to keep our support costs as low as possible for the circumstances.

You can check this information in our 2006/07 Annual Report and Accounts (p47), which are published as part of our financial reporting obligations.

Support costs will differ from charity to charity as different circumstances will apply. You can also make comparisons by referring to guidestar.co.uk an online listing of charities which outlines their objectives and their financial status.

We don’t set our directors’ salaries as a percentage of income. Our directors’ salaries are part of our support costs. Just as we need professional staff to ensure our work is of high standard, so we need high-calibre directors who can lead the charity and be paid appropriately for their effectiveness.

Asthma UK has the same need for professionalism and effective management structures as any other organisation in the private or public sector. In order to attract the calibre of chief executive or directors to do this it is necessary to pay senior staff at a level commensurate with their responsibility. However, CEOs and directors of charities are not generally paid as highly as their equivalents in most private sector organisations with the same annual turnover.

More details are included in our 2006/07 Annual Report and Accounts (p47), which are published as part of our financial reporting obligations.

In 2006/7 there were four Asthma UK employees whose emoluments (payment for employment) exceeded £60,000 during the year and no employees whose emolument exceeded £80,000.

Reserves keep Asthma UK afloat. In 2006/7 92% of Asthma UK’s income came from voluntary donations from members of the public. Although we fundraise in a number of different ways, this remains a potentially vulnerable source of income. In order to protect ourselves against a fall in the level of donations (either from a declining economic climate, or from unsuccessful fundraising activity) we keep some ‘savings’ to use during lean times (called ‘reserves’).

Reserves also enable us to meet emergencies. Currently our level of reserves is set at between four and six months of our running costs, not including our commitment to our research projects. This means if our income dried up completely tomorrow we would be able to continue operating our services, such as the Asthma UK Adviceline, for a further 4-6 months until the income situation was rectified.

We are required by law to have a reserves policy which outlines why we need reserves. Without a reserves policy, our trustees would not be confident that our reserves level matches the charity's needs at any time. Without a regularly reviewed policy, we could be holding reserves that are too high or too low for our needs (resulting in holding money back, which could be used for direct charitable expenditure or the risk of financial insecurity and insolvency). The Charity Commission can intervene if it feels a charity’s reserve levels are too high.

You can find out more details about Asthma UK’s reserves in our 2006/07 annual report and accounts (p38), which is published as part of our financial reporting obligations.

Asthma is serious, asthma can kill. On average three people die every day from asthma in the UK, three lives cut short, three families changed for ever.

Asthma threatens people’s lives. On an average day 221 people are admitted to hospital for their asthma in the UK, including 91 children. No one wants their child to be in hospital - imagine seeing your child fighting for breath when they’ve had an asthma attack?

Shockingly 90% of these deaths and 75% of these admissions can be prevented though effective asthma management.

Asthma UK believes this is unacceptable and strives to prevent needless deaths and traumatic hospital visits. We do this by working with healthcare professionals and people with asthma to manage their condition and reduce the effect of asthma on their lives. With more money we could reach more people.  

There are some people for whom current asthma medications do not work. Many people with severe asthma symptoms can be imprisoned in their own home, living in fear that their next attack may be the one that kills them. Asthma UK’s research programme provides hope for these people as, by increasing our understanding of this condition, we can develop new and more effective treatments that could end asthma attacks and save lives in the future.

This year, our committee of expert scientists and doctors decided a shortlist of the most promising asthma research projects submitted to Asthma UK funding this year. These have been all been evaluated internationally by asthma experts. Currently, we do not have the money to support all the new research projects that have been recommended by our committee as being suitable for funding. This year we could only fund 14 of the 24 on the shortlist.  This means we are potentially missing out on a way to control asthma or even prevent it from happening in the first place. With more money we can fund more groundbreaking research projects.