Responsible Financial UseIn order for you to have complete peace of mind, here's how we ensure effective, transparent and correct use of every donation we receive:

Transparency

1. Weekly and monthly bookeeping by an external and independant institution.
2. Annual auditing by SAICA accredited auditors.
3. Bi-Annual board of trustees financial review.
4. Full compliance with government regulations pertaining to Non Profit Organisations.

Performance Category 1: Program Expenses

We exist to run a programme that builds into the lives of disadvantaged young people and helps them enter gainful employment. We fail the expectations of givers when our spending on this is insufficient when compared to our overall income. We work out our programme financial efficiency as follows: if our spending on programme related expenses is R2.5 million and our overall operating budget is is R3.5 million we spend 71.4% on programme related expenses. A score of 70% and higher is recognised as a good score. We currently score 73%.

Performance Category 2: Administrative Expenses

As with successful organisations in any sector, in order for us to be effective we must recruit, develop, and retain talented people. We must however ensure that these administrative expenses remain reasonable and in line with our total functional expenses. Here again, we calculate our administrative expenses by comparing them to our total functional expenses. Thus, if we spend R500,000 on administrative expenses, compared to R3.5 million in total functional expenses we spend 14.3% on administrative expenses. A score of 15% or lower is recognised as a good score. We currently score 21%. At the outset our salary costs are high because we have a low student to staff ratio, this percentage score will be dramatically reduced as the number of students in RealStart increases. Our trust constitution clearly states that all our staff will work on a 50/50 ratio - 50% staff salary from RealStart, 50% from raising up personal support. This means that as time goes by we expect our salary costs to be well below 15%.

Performance Category 3: Fundraising Expenses

We spend money to raise money, but we do not exist to raise money. Givers support us because of what we do, not our ability to raise money. Here again we divide our fundraising expenses by our total function expenses. A score of 10% and lower is considered good. We currently score 0.5%

Responsible Financial Behaviour

Every week, every month and every year

Our budget is first approved by a board of advisors to ensure that our expenditure remains in line with the stated aims of RealStart. Then clear records are kept of all expenditure, captured (by an external bookkeeper) at the end of every week and totaled at the end of every month to produce a financial report that the board has access to throughout the year. Over and above this a full financial audit takes place at the end of every financial year to ensure that we maintain Non-Profit status. This financial report is also made available to all board members and key stakeholders.

Effective Use of Finances

In pursuit of excellence

Although we have brought together a highly qualified team to make the RealStart vision a reality we refuse to rest on past experience and ‘old’ knowledge. We are committed to constantly striving to see where we can be better and more effective in changing the lives of young people. Therefore we make use of external assessors to determine how effective our programme is in:

• Developing students holistically
• Enabling students to achieve vocational success
• Giving students an enjoyable experience
• Developing a civic minded spirit