5th September 2008, 09:41 PM
Quote:quote:
The charity unit that I worked for certainly didn't have a discounted rent as it was never part of a county council or university - it was always independent. It may have got some discount software but this would have been a tiny fraction of expenditure anyway. As manager there the charitable status was actually a bit of a pain as it meant having to rejig costings re. VAT every time the client was also potentially non-VAT registered. I recall numerous debates at senior management level regarding whther or not it would be much easier simply to lose the charitable status.
Possibly, but aren't we concerned that outreach takes place, and that we therefore have to generate the money in some way to cover it? Not all clients like to see this expressed explicitly.
I fully agree with the second part of this. However the first part is wrong - for the units that are charities the money cannot go into anyone's pocket unless the trustees agree it, and this is more likely to be in the form of a wage increase across the board rather then a bonus to senior staff.
Beamo
I suspect that several charity (and council) based organisations do get some form of discounted accommodation (I'm pretty certain of in in some cases I'm familiar with), which, when you consider overheads is a fairly large sum. The point is that with whatever advantages, however small, the potential to make more 'profit' is still there and so the possibility to pay more is also present.
Having been involved in a small charity (not an archaeological one) I can understand why you might want to get rid of the charitable status - the paperwork is a real pain. This connects to my last point, which wasn't that someone i.e. a 'director'-like figure pockets the 'profit' but rather that a charity might think 'we've had a good year so we can afford to employ another outreach officer to fulfill the roles of the charity', or 'we need some more admin people to deal with all this blinkin' paperwork', rather than 'lets pay all our loverly diggers some more.! If they do do the latter then good for them, but does it really happen?
In addition, I am of course keen for outreach to take place,but it's difficult for companies that aren't charities (which might have it written into their mems and arts) and to pay for it unless the brief specifies it (which some do, although often quite weakly in my experience and only for big projects). Otherwise the only way a private company can justify it is as advertising, which it probably isn't very effective as as it's not aimed at the target demographic, i.e. developers (God, how corporate, I'll be looking for that Coke promotion next!)
Also, I'm not sure about the VAT registered bit. Are the company arms of charities (archaeological or otherwise) excempt from being VAT registered?