As part of an irregular enquiry into how secularism is being funded I had the good fortune to stumble upon the accounts of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason Ltd. These are filed with Companies House so we can all view them provided we are prepared to pay the princely sum of £1.
My money might have been more wisely spent. All the accounts for the year to 30 April 2009 tell us is that there has been a substantial growth in income up from £81k to £317k. The balance sheet reveals a cash balance of £186k and debtors of £57k. The accounts make it clear that reserves (reflected in the cash and debtors) are being built up to to establish the charity.
Of the donations that have been made, the British Humanist Association got £13k, which will have pleased Stephen Fry. However the biggest item by far is a donation of £102k to the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason (US). The US arm of the Dawkins Foundation actually controls its UK equivalent so I guess that having racked up some Gift Aid from UK donations the money goes to support its bigger cousin across the pond.
So next step is to see what is on the record for the Foundation over there.
6 comments:
My oh my!
I'm glad to see you read my comment on your previous post on this fascinating subject!
Grumpy - yes and many thanks for the steer. You can be a limited company and a charity so in this case I had two chances of tracking down what I wanted - Companies House and the Commission. Whether such transparency of disclosure is required in the US will soon become apparent - and whether it is available to a "non Dom"
The problem is I have to seem to be a wee bit "Jesuitical" due to my job as a public servant. ( I can only offer advice to people that is really in the public domain.)
Many thanks. Everything I have gleaned so far is a matter of public record - quite rightly in my view. As far as the US is concerned you can register with a "not for profit" search engine called Guide Star which has a free basic service with some chargeable elements. I have used that to scan the Foundation's returns in the US. I'll update the blog when I have finished my trawl.
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