It’s just as important to be clear where money doesn’t go to as to where it does go, to minimise any possible ambiguity or confusion:

• No advertising. We don’t advertise ourselves apart from on google, which is free for charities.
• No accounting cost. We don’t pay any accountants in the UK, we do it ourselves and with the help of friendly accountants who certify them for us. We do pay an for an annual audit on the Indian accounts, which is required by law for NGOs.
• No web-site designers. Ed has built all the incarnations of the Educate for Life website (which is why you might find the odd error here or there!), and he pays for all the web hosting so we can keep money from donations concentrated in the right places.
• No Travel costs. We pay for our own visas to India, our own flights and our own cost of getting there. We do tuck into food when at Hunar Ghar and stay in the Educate for Life home, but we also make our own donations to the charity from time to time, which more than covers these small amounts anyway.
• No putting up volunteers in expensive hotels. Everyone at Hunar Ghar gets equal treatment. When people come and stay with us they live with us, which is with the people in the village.
• No white 4x4s, no air conditioned offices. We like to keep things simple. Yes India is hot, but it is manageable. It’s certainly no hotter for us than the people who toil in their fields each day. We believe that we should minimise the economic disparity between us and the people we work with as much as possible if we really believe we are equal people. On top of that, it is money that is better spent elsewhere and such things are big pollutants, which we don’t agree with the unnecessary use of.
• No branded coffee mugs. We borrow our mums’ !