The Donkey Sanctuary’s Trustees Report and Accounts for the 15 month period ended 31 December 2010 have been prepared in accordance with Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice 2005 (SORP).

The financial year end for the charity was changed from September to December during 2010, hence the 15 month period of account and therefore for the purposes of narrative analysis only within the Trustees Report and Accounts all narrative comparisons with 2009 marked * are made with comparatives being stated as 15 month equivalents, unless otherwise stated.

Explanatory Notes

Income

Income raised for the period was £26.9m (2009*: £28.2m) 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 was slightly lower than that for 2009 at £25.8m (2009*- £27.2m) representing 96% (2009*- 97%) of our total incoming resources. This includes £2.1m (2009* - £3.2m) 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 £23.7m (2009* - £24.0m) 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, Morocco, Zambia, Cameroon and Tanzania.

We aim to keep our fundraising and governance costs as low as possible so as to ensure as much of our supporters’ donations are available to be spent on the care and welfare of donkeys as possible. At the same time we acknowledge the need to invest in the future prosperity of the charity and hence during the period ended 31 December 2010 our fundraising and governance costs increased slightly to 9.1 pence for every £1 of total income generated (2009 - 8.9 pence). This increase reflects the need for continued development of new fundraising strategies to reach new audiences, to expand awareness of our mission and generate additional income to expand our activities and hence reach more donkeys and mules in need of our help.

Reserves

The charity’s policy regarding its reserves is to maintain, as far as is possible, a minimum of free liquid reserves equivalent to at least one year’s planned expenditure. At the end of December 2010 the charity’s reserves that were freely available to spend were £30.6m, which included £9.2m in respect of legacies for which we had been advised but for which no cash had been received. After deducting this £9.2m, we arrive at £21.4m which represents 12 months of our planned level of expenditure for the financial year commencing 1st January 2011.

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 Trustee’s Report outlines in detail our plans for the next period and we envisage an increased intake of donkeys due to the current economic climate as well as further development and expansion of the Foster scheme including extending this to mules where suitable. In the wider international arena, the Charity will continue to target those who can bring about change in places where donkey welfare is particularly compromised, through the continued use of veterinary care and the development of education and community development programmes. We also intend to enter into discussions and partnerships with other complementary organisations, to see if we can increase the number of projects where we work together thereby enabling us all to be able to expand our areas of operation and reach more donkeys within budgetary restraints.