DHARMACHAKRA 4 Warminster Road Registered Charity 294143 St. Werburghs Bristol BS2 9UH UK info@freebuddhistaudio.com
DHARMACHAKRA ANNUAL REPORT 2022
FINANCIAL REVIEW
Income for the period amounted to £186,102 .
This represents a reduction of £16,766 against 2021 results, a decrease of around 8.2%.
Dharmachakra made a larger than budgeted loss in 2022. The trustees agreed to spend from reserves to meet the needs for a larger team and to help absorb the various financial shocks of the post-pandemic economy: lower donations, lower event income and the effects of UK sterling collapsing (post-Brexit and postpandemic) in relation to the US dollar.
The trustees anticipate the larger team, re-focussed on event income generation, will help offset some of these effects in future years.
The build-up of an unclaimed backlog in Gift Aid income also impacted the final cash flow for this year. As did the resumption of international travel and associated costs.
PRINCIPLE FUNDING SOURCES
Income includes £98,000 in the form of grants over 12 months.
This represents only a slight reduction on the previous year.
As well as grants the principle funding for the charity was in the form of donations totalling £76,076 .
The equivalent figure for 2021 was £90,529. This represents a significant reduction in donation income of around 16%.
We also derived income from client work, including web hosting. In 2022 this was worth £12,026 .
The equivalent figure for 2021 was £12,960.
In response to reduced team capacity in relevant areas, Dharmachakra continued to take on less client work, particularly web development.
INVESTMENT POLICY
Dharmachakra no longer operates an investment account.
RESERVES POLICY
The trustees continue with their intention, where possible, to hold the recommended level of reserve for a charitable organization (at least three months’ worth of expenditure). The amount held at the end of the year allows this intention to move towards implementation as policy going forward. Reserves, and the investment of portions of the reserve, will be regularly reviewed by the trustees, together with a general review of the financial position of the charity.
At the end of 2022, reserves stood at £64,727 (a reduction of £11,305 on the previous year). This represents 5.5 months of expenditure.
LOANS
There are no outstanding loans.
OBJECTIVES AND ACTIVITIES
The overall objective of Dharmachakra is the advancement of the Buddhist religion. In particular its aims are:
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To encourage members and others to live in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha.
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To publish literature and other material in furtherance of these aims.
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To support members of the Triratna Buddhist Order and other duly ordained Buddhists at the discretion of the council of the charity.
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In furtherance of the above purpose, but no further or otherwise, the charity shall maintain close communication with, and work under the guidance of, the Triratna Buddhist Order in cooperation with other groups with the same objects.
To achieve these aims the charity archives, and makes available for free download, both text and audio files of Buddhist teachings. It also runs a web publishing platform and social media spaces to further support connections within our community.
ACHIEVEMENTS AND PERFORMANCE 2022
Like many businesses and charities operating in the UK, 2022 saw Dharmachakra buffeted by the strong effects of post-pandemic and post-Brexit economics. The team responded well to all challenges, including those resulting from personnel changes.
Our live events platform - established as an entirely new source of income driving increases to the team in both 2020 and 2021 - saw some shrinkage in terns of revenue. One bright aspect was that attendee numbers rose - no mean feat given the range of human activities restored to everyone post-pandemic and the huge competitive market for online events that has grown up. We think this bodes well for the future and Dharmachakra has become known for its range of events and their general excellence. We hope to capitalize on this in the next few years.
The other major development at the charity was the complete mobile-friendly redesign and relaunch of one of our two flagship websites, Free Buddhist Audio: www.freebuddhistaudio.com. This third major iteration of the audio archive and community audio platform represented a milestone for both Dharmachakra and the wider Triratna community.
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As a charity that places a lot of emphasis on the ethical principles of Buddhist ‘Right Livelihood’ we remain immensely grateful for the opportunity to offer meaningful work to others who feel connected to these same values, and to support many Buddhist teachers who offer their inspiration and wisdom to others online so generously and so consistently.
PLANS FOR THE FUTURE (2023)
As well as continuing to develop our events platform and expand the range of what’s on offer, we also expect to complete the mobile-friendly redesign of our other major website, The Buddhist Centre Online (www.thebuddhistcentre.com). This ambitious project should give our community an integrated and modern platform that brings together all our sites and services with a shared design language and greatly improved ease of use. We will be absorbing into this new site many of the standalone spaces developed for use during the pandemic. Taken together this new version of The Buddhist Centre Online should represent the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community much more effectively online.
Our server project will continue to support more experienced webmasters in developing their own websites and social web spaces – and help less experienced situations maintain a secure, virus-free online environment when it comes to their presence online.
Financially, we will push on with our successful efforts to make Dharmachakra more financially independent in ways that would allows us to grow the team further and offer more value to our community and our funding partners. We look forward to another year of challenge and of dana ( Sanskrit: ‘generosity’) as the most effective response.
TRUSTEES IN 2022
David Creighton (Chair), Madeleine Cadwallender (Secretary), Bettye Pruitt, Tim Holden, Sean Boland, James Neidhart.
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Dharmachakra (UK) annual accounts to 31st December 20
Receipts and Payments Accounts January to December 2022
Donations PayPal Standing Orders (Recurring) Events Hosted Institutional donations during covid-19 Other Donations Gift Aid Tax |
2022 |
|
|---|---|---|
| £ 2022 12,185 38,684 24,906 300 |
£ FBA 20,814 3,729 157 1,757 0 26,457 503 503 0 0 26,960 2,025 1,050 391 36 3,502 |
|
| Other Income Web Hosting & Domain Names (Triratna Server) Other(Publishing Services) |
76,076 7,026 0 |
|
| Grants Received ECA Future Dharma Fund Order Office Triratna Trust |
7,026 0 80,000 15,000 3,000 |
|
| Client Work LBC Development Order Office Other(Festival Day) |
98,000 0 5,000 0 |
|
| 5,000 | ||
| Total Income | 186,102 | |
| Administration Accounting Bank fees etc Insurance Telephone Office & Postage Other |
1,762 2,334 782 248 142 49 |
|
| 5,317 |
| General Costs | ||
|---|---|---|
| Computer & Software | -9 | 50 |
| Depreciation | 1,039 | 292 |
| Domain Names (centre sites) | 2,597 | 0 |
| Social Media Manager | 4,223 | 0 |
| Consultancy - contractors to help with events etc | 12,169 | 0 |
| Travel expenses | 5,429 | |
| 25,449 | 342 | |
| Website Costs | ||
| Order Office and Administrative support | 15,230 | 0 |
| Website Management & Content Promotion | 38,451 | 4,350 |
| Web Development(primary coding) | 51,813 | 14,880 |
| 105,494 | 19,230 | |
| Total Expenditure | 136,259 | 23,074 |
| Cash Flow | 49,842 | 3,886 |
| Grant Transfer | ||
| Paid to US | -61,146 | -23,153 |
| Adjusted Cash Flow | -11,304 | -19,267 |
Dharmachakra (UK) annual accounts to 31st December 2022
NOTES:
Note 1: Decrease in general donatons to Dharmachakra
Overall, donations to Dharmachakra fell. There was an expected continued drop-off o The fall in donation income also reflects the cost of living crisis in the UK as some don
Note 2: Gif Aid receipt
The Gift Aid receipts for 2020 and 2021 donations) are expected to be received in 202
Note 3: Client work
In response to reduced team capacity in relevant areas, Dharmachakra continued to t
Note 4: Financial administraton
Accounting costs were temporarily reduced following the death of our colleague Lee Bank fees etc are made up of International transfers (via Wise) / Paypal fees / Stripe f
Note 5: General costs
Computer costs are evaluated for a capitalization threshold of £1,000, below which, t
When comparing computer & software costs from year to year, depreciation expense Many domain names renew on a two-year cycle, so this year there was an increase in
Note 6: Travel expenses
In 2022 Candradasa resumed some travel for work for the first time since the pandem
Note 7: Team costs
Dharmachakra's team overall expanded, with several changes to job categorization an Correspondingly, the cost of aspects of the work (promotion/social media) rose; while
Note 8: increase in USA grant compared to 2021
Grants passed through to Dharmachakra U.S. increased and were used to cover incre primarily in switching payment for Google Cloud to the US from the UK and generally
Note 9: Overall loss
Dharmachakra made a larger than budgeted loss in 2022. The trustees agreed to spen and to help absorb the various financial shocks of the post-pandemic economy: lower The trustees anticipate the larger team, re-focussed on event income generation, will The build-up of an unclaimed backlog in Gift Aid income also impacted the final cash fl
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| 2021 | £ £ 2021 change NOTES 34,126 -21,941 1 14,041 24,643 1 38,969 -14,063 1 1,570 -1,570 1 1,822 -1,522 1 0 0 2 90,529 -14,453 1 6,780 246 503 -503 7,283 -257 3,127 -3,127 80,000 0 15,000 0 750 2,250 98,877 -877 1,650 -1,650 2,250 2,750 2,280 -2,280 6,180 -1,180 202,868 -16,766 3 4,050 -2,288 4 2,635 -301 4 782 0 0 248 133 9 0 49 7,600 -2,284 |
|
|---|---|---|
| £ TBC 13,313 10,312 38,969 1,413 65 |
||
| 64,072 6,780 |
||
| 6,780 3,127 80,000 15,000 750 |
||
| 98,877 1,650 2,250 2,280 |
||
| 6,180 | ||
| 175,908 | ||
| 2,025 1,585 391 97 |
||
| 4,098 |
| -84 | -34 | 25 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 877 | 1,169 | -130 | 5 |
| 1,570 | 1,570 | 1,028 | 5 |
| 21,981 | 21,981 | -17,758 | 7 |
| 11,571 | 11,571 | 599 | |
| 0 | 5,429 | 6 | |
| 35,914 | 36,256 | -10,808 | |
| 8,512 | 8,512 | 6,718 | 7 |
| 14,764 | 19,114 | 19,337 | 7 |
| 41,638 | 56,517 | -4,705 | 7 |
| 64,913 | 84,143 | 21,351 | |
| 104,926 | 128,000 | 8,260 | 7 |
| 70,982 | 74,868 | -25,026 | |
| -29,460 | -52,613 | -8,534 | 8 |
| 41,523 | 22,256 | -33,560 | 9 |
of one-off institutional and event-based donations as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions ending. nor cancelled regular giving to cope with this.
23, along with the Gift Aid receipt for 2022 donations. So there is a nil Gift Aid receipt this year.
take on less client work, particularly web development.
Walford. Replacement services were, for much of the year, offered free of charge by volunteers or at reduced fees/Eventbrite fees.
the cost is expensed as Computers; above which, the cost is depreciated over the life of the asset.
e can be included. n charges in this area.
mic, when all travel expenses were suspended.
nd the unforeseen depature of one member of our web development team part-way through the year. e there was a drop in the cost of our coding division.
ased operating expenses,
paying for US based software and services from our US account.
nd from reserves to meet the needs for a larger team
r donations, lower event income and the effects of UK sterling collapsing (post-Brexit and post-pandemic) in re l help offset some of these effects in future years.
flow for this year. As did the resumption of international travel and associated costs.
I rates.
.lation to the US dollar.
Dharmachakra (UK) annual accounts to 31st December 2022
Statement of Assets and Liabilities
| Fixed Assets Fixtures, Fittings, Equipment Accumulated Depreciation |
31/12/2022 6,786 -2,208 |
31/12/2021 NOTES 6,786 -1,169 5,617 529 0 66,434 2,363 69,325 3,109_Deposited to C _78,051 2,019 2,019 76,032 5,617 48,159 22,256 76,032 |
|---|---|---|
| Current Assets Cash at Bank & In Hand Santander No1 & No2 Accounts Stripe Co-operative Bank Account PayPal Accounts |
4,578 4,010 169 53,404 3,015 |
|
| Uncleared receipts | 60,597 713 |
|
| Total Assets | 65,887 | |
| Liabilities Payroll Liabilities |
1,160 | |
| 1,160 | ||
| Net Assets | 64,727 | |
| Represented by: Book value of fxed assets Unrestricted net assets (Retained Earnings) Net Revenue |
4,578 71,454 -11,304 |
|
| 64,727 |
.wperAtive8ankinJan 2023
CHARIIY (OMMISSION Independent examiner's report on the FOR ENGLAND AND WAIES accounts Section A Independent Examlnevs Report Report to the trusteesl members of Dharmachakra On accounts for thè year 1 3111212022 ended Charity no 1294143 (if any) I report lo the Iruslees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity I'the Trusl") for the year ended 3111212022. Responsibilities and basis of report As the charity's Iruslees. you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requiremenls of the Charities Act 2011 I'the Act.). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in rying oul my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 14515llb) of the Act Independent I have completed my examination I confirm that no material matters have examlner's statement come lo my allenlion In connection with the examination which gives me cause lo believe that in. any material respect the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Charities Act. or the accounts did not accord with the accounting records., or the accounts did not Comply with the applicable requirements concerning the fomi and content of accounts sel out in the Charities (Accounts and Reports) Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the accounts give a 'lrue and fair. view which is not a matter considered as part of an Independent examination. I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination lo which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Signed: I Date: 0210612024 Name". Fay Pritchard Relevant professional MAAT qualification{s) or body {if any).. Address: 8 Da1n Street Shrewsbury SY3 8QE Oct 2018