WORLD BLIND UNION

FINANCIAL SUMMARY: 2012 – 2015

(Based on Audited Annual Statements

CATEGORY / 2012 / 2013 / 2014 / 2015 / TOTAL / %
REVENUES
Donations and grants (external) / $ 196,582 / $99,572 / $ 67,571 / $ 131,210 / $494,935 / 19.8
Member donations and grants / 225,733 / 259,775 / 249,960 / 248,078 / $983,546 / 39.5
Membership fees / 298,050 / 223,139 / 245,646 / 246,649 / $1,013,484 / 40.7
TOTAL REVENUE / $720,365 / $582,486 / $ 563,177 / $ 625,937 / $2,491,965 / 100
EXPENDITURES
Capacity development / 510,570 / 179,332 / 111,000 / 156,763 / $957,665 / 34.6
Mission representation / 121,503 / 115,719 / 162,682 / 247,270 / $647,174 / 23.4
Information and education / 87,540 / 131,432 / 137,929 / 76,140 / $433,041 / 15.6
Membership related activities / 57,077 / 85,891 / 83,970 / 65,771 / $292,709 / 10.5
Fund Development costs / 26,612 / 38,710 / 36,877 / 236 / $102,435 / 3.7
Administration, finance and governance costs / 159,799 / 65,965 / 60,656 / 51,108 / $337,528 / 12.2
TOTAL EXPENDITURES / 963,101 / 617,049 / 593,114 / 597,288 / $2,770,552
EXCESS OF REVENUE OVER EXPENDITURES / $(242,736) / $ $ (34,563) / $ (29,937) / $28,649
Unrestricted Assets / $ 248,049 / $ 216,985 / $ 186,594 / $ 217,429
TOTAL ASSETS / $ 628,510 / $ 557,088 / $ 553,209 / $ 559,962

NOTES

  1. This report is for the period 2012 to 2015 only as it is based on the audited financial statements that you receive on an annual basis. The 2016 results will therefore be reported on in the next quadrennial financial report.
  2. For 2012, the expenditures for the General Assembly were recorded but no equal amount had been budgeted on the revenue side. However, it had always been the practice that funds were set asideeach year for the General Assembly. These were held in internally restricted reserves and were drawn down in the year of the Assembly to offset the expenses. Because of the way Accounting principles work, we actually had to show a deficit in the year of the Assembly to reflect the Assembly costs. That is why the deficit shows as abnormally high in the year of the Assembly, We have since changed the Accounting process with the advice of our auditors.
  3. As noted above, we have changed how we treat the revenues that we put aside for the General Assembly starting in 2013. We deduct the portion of the membership fees that will be put aside for General Assembly support as soon as the fees come in and place those funds in a Deferred Revenue account (which you can find in the audited financial statements for each year. When you look at the Membership fees revenue in the chart above, you will think that our membership fees have reduced dramatically. That is not actually the case. We have received approximately the same amount, but we have not recognized some of these funds as revenue in 2013, 2014 and 2015 but instead have put them aside into the deferred revenue account. We will recognize all of these deferred revenue funds set aside for the General Assembly during 2016 to offset the costs of the General Assembly sponsorships. In that way, our final year end position should also be consistent with other years. We understand that this process is a bit cumbersome and confusing but we must follow proper accounting processes. We decided to make this change so that we would not be showing such high deficits in our General Assembly year as such high deficits could raise concerns with potential funders. And we had always put a portion of the membership fees aside for this purpose for many years now; it was a matter of changing the way we treated them from the accounting perspective.
  4. The membership fees as reported above reflect the amounts that we billed for, less the allocations we put aside for the General Assembly, as described above. These amounts do not reflect the actual amounts received from members, which actually gets reflected in our accounts receivable. It is a bit of a complicated process but we are required to do it this way to comply with accounting standards. For example, in 2014, we issued invoices for a total of $275,646. We actually received $258,795. Once we remove the $30,000 that was to be set aside the General Assembly, we actually received $228,795 of the $245,646 that should have been received if all fees that we invoiced had been paid. There was a similar membership fee variance in each year and thus the ongoing increases in our accounts receivable amounts as shown on our balance sheet. Further, each year, we must expense about 25% of these unpaid receivables as amounts that will likely never be paid.
  5. Virtually no interest revenue was earned due to very low interest rates. In addition, the continued fluctuations in the American dollar currency would have caused the WBU to lose more money due to exchange losses than we would have earned in safe treasury bill type investments (safe, but low interest). A conscious decision was made to not invest in equity markets and to keep our funds safe, while recognizing that they would earn virtually nothing during these times of low interest rates.
  6. As members are aware, all of our functional costs are allocated into particular categories. Some of these can be allocated based on direct costs of activities – such as any costs related to the Development committee, for example, would clearly be allocated to Capacity Building. For the membership related expenses, this category does not include any of our work associated with members that might fit into capacity building, representation and so forth. Rather, it includes a percentage of our office costs related to dealing with membership matters – communications with members, maintaining the membership lists, handling member enquiries and so forth – so is basically an allocation based on the percentage of Ianina’s and my time, Officers meeting costs; also the unpaid membership fees that we need to write down as bad debt each year are also charged to membership related expenses.