Figures and Facts

„How high are your administration costs actually …?“

This or a similar question is often put to us. Consciously or unconsciously it also implies the question “How much money does the organisation spend for advertising?”

Hereafter the different aspects will be explained in an easily understable but all-encompassing manner.

• What are administration costs actually?

  Office rent, pens, stationary, postage, telephone and internet, travel expenses, thus all expenses which are not directly used for the purpose of the donation (e. g. food, clothes and medicine for the children in our care) are administration costs – aren’t they?

  For different reasons this question is answered by different organisations in completely different ways. Therefore, we decided not only to give a certain percentage for our administration costs, but to go into detail a bit more, so that the (potential) donor can decide him- or herself if the funds are used in an economical and responsible way.

• Personnel costs or project maintenance?

  In our office there three employees in the administration who occupy two full-time jobs. The work range of the employees covers

  all administrative works in Germany, such as

  • accounting of donations
  • processing and forwarding letters to and from foster children
  • the required paperwork for the annual audit, reporting to the revenue office, to the department of commerce etc.

  public relations activities, such aa

  • visits, presentations in sponsors’ groups, schools, churches
  • information stands at special events (church conventions, festivals, exhibitions etc.)
  • drafting, layout, production and distribution of our regular newsletters
  • maintenance of the internet presence

  support of the overseas projects

  • administration of sponsorships
  • budgeting of the daily needs
  • project visits and controlling*
  • supervision of the standards of care
  • counselling the projects concerning questions of administration, school and job education and others

  (*) in projects not constantly led by dispatched sisters or employees

  Personnel expenses are ONLY booked as project maintenance and not as administrative expenses according to the actual share which the respective employee spends in the project abroad.

• What is advertising, what are public relations, what is education?

  If advertising only consists of newspaper advertisements, bills, mailings and TV commercials, then we have good news: The expenses for advertising are 0 %. Why? Our experience has shown that from the beginning we can rely on our sponsors and friends.

  This is mainly due to the very short communication paths between our sponsors and the project work and, for example, the sponsored children. In our office we know all projects very closely, we know all the responsible staff members abroad personally. So there is a close connection between our friends and us which also persists in difficult times. Even in economically difficult situations there never was a decline in the donations. We are very grateful for this. Most sponsors and donors support us because of a personal recommendation from friends or family, from people to whom we and our work are already known – and appreciated.

  In our presentations we do not only report on our project work but also talk about the reasons of need.

• Our public relations activities consist of

  presentations in churches, schools or other groups information stands at special events like Christival, Church Congress or the like distribution of our newsletter (only to friends already known to us!) printing of information flyers about our projects or our work in general (see download area) which are also only distributed on request.

  Up to now we have not implemented any advertisements, mailings or commercials.

  Appeals for special donations are only made in case of a special occasion, such as a flood or earthquake, i.e. only when we are already on the spot and can help effectively with our network.

• Why don’t you have a donation seal?

  Here the donation seal of the DZI (German Central Institute for Social Affairs) is meant which is often recommended in the media. We approve that this seal exists and we always supplied all required information to the DZI when asked for. This was always rewarded with a basically positive disclosure note (without detailed auditing).

  In the last decades another external concept of control has developed. Since our foundation in 1968 we are a member of Diakonisches Werk Baden (charitable organisation of the protestant church). This means that we have to submit to an annual audit by the trust office of Diakonisches Werk. This audit lasts for about 10 days, half of them on our premises. From the beginning this annual audit was always and without interruption completed successfully and certified.

  Of course, we are also controlled regularly by the responsible revenue office. Since 1968 we are recognized without interruption as serving charitable purposes.

For more information, don’t hesitate to contact us via e-mail or phone :-)