Ground-breaking analysis disproves the popular idea that charities should spend less on administrati

Would you favour donating to a charity with low or high administration costs? What if we told you that charities that have a low administration cost, are more likely to be low performers?

Giving Evidence and Givewell, conducted research comparing charities from 2008 to 2011. They found that lower-performing charities spent 9.5% on overheads and higher performing charities spent 10.2%.

A perfect example of this is Chance UK, they provide mentors for children in primary school who are at risk of anti-social behaviour and possible exclusion from school. As part of their administration costs, they spent money evaluating their impact. From this they found that children with emotional problems responded better to female mentors, whereas male mentors were best suited to children with behavioural issues.

Charities can only know if they are achieving their key objectives by monitoring and evaluating their impact.

To us we think that improving the services and support provided to children, is money well spent.

For more information, check out the following press release from Giving Evidence… https://givingevidence.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/admin-costs-press-release-giving-evidence-may-2013.pdf