Charities - how to find out how charitable they are!

07/04/2008

A reader asks how charitable charities are, in particular what percentage of their income is spent on administration. I worked for an ex-Service charity for some seven years after leaving the Army.  If you are concerned over the % amount of administrative costs of a charity, look at their accounts. 

 

It does depend a bit of what the charity does, but we were always told that 20% should not be exceeded (although in any one year of, say a re-organisation there might be more) and a good charity should be around the 10% mark.
 
Stephen Coltman