The Donkey Sanctuary's Trustees Report and Accounts for the year ended 30 September 2008 have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice 2005 (SORP).

Explanatory Notes

Income

Income raised for the year was £22.7m (2007 £20.5m) and, as you will see from our accounts, 90% of that income is voluntary. We do rely on the ongoing help of our supporters to be able to continue our work in providing the highest standard of care for donkeys and mules across the world.

Expenditure

Expenditure on our charitable activities rose to £19.7m (2007 £18.1m) during the year representing 87% (2007 88%) of our total incoming resources. This includes £2.6m of capital cost of developing new and existing facilities both in the UK and overseas, as well as providing specialist equipment and vehicles. The remaining £17.1m represents our operational day-to-day expenditure spent on our core charitable activities of managing our UK farms, providing a welfare support network, training and education, specialist veterinary care and research, and working worldwide. Our work worldwide encompasses our farms in Ireland, our farms and projects in continental Europe as well as five major projects, in Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Kenya and Mexico. We also provide support and advice to a number of other countries including China, South Africa, Uganda, and Tanzania.

We keep our fundraising and governance costs as low as possible so as to ensure the maximum amount of our supporters’ donations being available to be spent on the care and welfare of the donkeys. This year our fundraising and governance costs were 8.3 pence for every £1 of the total income generated for the charity.

Reserves

The charity’s policy regarding its reserves is to maintain a minimum of free liquid reserves equivalent to at least one year’s planned expenditure. At the end of September 2008 the charity’s reserves that were freely available to spend were £27.9m, which included £9.8m in respect of legacies for which we had been advised but for which no cash had been received. After deducting this £9.8m, we arrive at £18.1m which represents 11 months of our planned level of expenditure for the financial year commencing 1st October 2008.

Our reserves reflect not only the resources required to fund the charity’s day-to-day operation but also to cover our plans for the future. Our Trustees’ Report outlines in detail our plans for the next period and we envisage further investment in the infrastructure at our farms in Spain and Italy as well as development of our holding bases and other welfare projects across Europe. In the wider international arena, following the recruitment of our New Director of International Operations, we will be looking to continue our work in each of our 5 core projects as well as exploring new education and training initiatives for vets, vet students, owners and children.

To find out more you can download a copy of the Trustees’ Report and Accounts below.