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Finance Score: -9
Governance Score: 9
Support Score: 9
  • Low unrestricted reserves: -2
  • Multiple Deficits: -2
  • Fundraising costs high: -5
  • Good trustee age range: +3
  • Dynamic board: +3
  • Gender balanced board: +3
  • Grant maker support: +9
Overall GiG Score: 9 ?

MYSOCIETY 

mySociety helps people be active citizens with technology, research and data that individuals, journalists, and civil society can use, openly and for free. We work across three interlinked practice areas: Community, Democracy and Transparency - each underpinned by research, sector building and appropriate commercial work.
Analysis by Giving is Great

Positives:

  • Spending has increased over the last 3 years relative to the previous period
  • A significant proportion of recent income was derived from major grant makers including the Government
  • The Board appears to be well diversified in terms of age and gender and dynamic in terms of composition

Financial issues to consider:

  • Unrestricted reserves appear to be dangerously low at the latest year end
  • On several occasions in recent years income has been less than spending
  • Fundraising costs are extremely high relative to funds raised


miles
Established: 25 years
(27 years as a company)

www.mysociety.org

hello@mysociety.org

02032390725

Charity Commission for England and WalesCompanies HouseFacebookInstagramX

Financial Data ?

Income & Spending ?
Sources of Income ?
Y/E Income
£k		 Spending
£k		 Surplus/
Deficit		 Fundraising
Cost £k		 Total
Funds £k		 Unrestricted
Funds £k		 Mths
Rsrvs		 Staff Volun-
teers
31/03/23£2,487£2,250£237£1,079£671£5272.8335
31/03/22£1,864£2,116£-253£1,024£434£4002.33114
31/03/21£1,966£1,487£480£755£687£6315.1254
31/03/20£1,462£1,715£-254£781£207£1360.92510
31/03/19£2,144£2,051£93£786£92£920.5285
31/03/18£1,261£1,265£-4£0£22£220.2250
31/03/17£1,385£1,425£-40£0£27£270.2250
31/03/16£1,259£1,353£-94£0£66£660.600
31/03/15£1,391£1,589£-198£22£160£1591.200
31/03/14£1,574£1,437£137£21£358£2732.3250
31/03/13£841£652£189£26£221£-74-1.400
31/03/12£687£689£-2£12£33£-89-1.500
31/03/11£123£110£13£0£0£0n/a00
31/03/10*£121£129£-9£0£0£0n/a00
31/03/09*£189£120£69£0£0£0n/a00
31/03/08*£92£78£14£0£0£0n/a00
31/03/07*£186£136£50£0£0£0n/a00
31/03/06*£123£129£-7£0£0£0n/a00
31/03/05*£120£84£36£0£0£0n/a00
31/03/04*£13£10£3£0£0£0n/a00
Show more rows -->

Download accounts
Financial Ratios
Fundraising Costs/Relevant Income: 84%
Fundraising Costs/Total Spending: 47.9%
Senior Staff Costs/Total Spending: 34%
Highest pay band: £90,000-£100,000
Liabilities/Assets: 50%
Liabilities/Income: 27%
Unrestricted Funds/Total Funds: 79%
Reserves/Spending: 2.8 months
Net Current Assets/Spending: 3 months
Quick Ratio: 1.2
Asset Split ?
Listed activities
  • Other Charitable Purposes
How it operates
  • Sponsors or undertakes research
Where it operates
  • Throughout England And Wales,
Who it helps
  • The General Public/Mankind
Who works here?
  • 33 employees
  • 5 volunteers

Who's supporting them? ?

Donations from Grant Makers ?

We have details on the following significant donations. Multi-year donations are allocated to the years for which they are earmarked.

Major supporters in last 5 years
Esmee Fairbairn£200,000
Joseph Rowntree Foundation£185,625
Nesta£70,000
DCMS£70,000
Specific Donations
Amount When
Months		 To be used for
Joseph Rowntree Foundation - Grant to mySociety
£129,065 19/03/2022
Knowledge is power: ensuring the right to information can be used by all
Joseph Rowntree Foundation - Grant to mySociety
£56,560 10/07/2020
6
Upholding our right to information: challenging government refusals of FOI requests
Nesta - AC01001
£70,000 11/02/2020
4
Future News Fund programme grant to My Society Grant Ref AC01001
DCMS - Future News Pilot Fund
£70,000 22/07/2019
Fund developed to promote innovations that can address the problems of poor quality news
Esmee Fairbairn - Grant to UK Citizens Online Democracy (mySociety)
£200,000 02/07/2019
24
Towards core costs to investigate how organisations use tech to influence government, empower people to engage and challenge democratically and improve non-profit use of tech to promote inclusion and ....more
Indigo Trust - Parliamentary Monitoring Sites technical work
£15,125 24/04/2019
To facilitate the transfer of the technical administration of a number of parliamentary monitoring sites to local, in-country teams.
Indigo Trust - Parliamentary Monitoring Sites technical work
£15,125 24/04/2019
To facilitate the transfer of the technical administration of a number of parliamentary monitoring sites to local, in-country teams.
Indigo Trust - Supporting international programmes and associated research costs
£40,000 20/03/2018
Supporting mySociety's international programmes (specifically work with, but not limited to, PMG and Mzalendo) and also to cover some associated research costs.
Indigo Trust - Supporting international programmes and associated research costs
£40,000 20/03/2018
Supporting mySociety's international programmes (specifically work with, but not limited to, PMG and Mzalendo) and also to cover some associated research costs.
Power to Change - UK Citizens Online Democracy
£92,544 01/07/2017
21
Grant to UK Citizens Online Democracy
Indigo Trust - Integrating EveryPolitician dataset into Wikidata
£30,000 04/05/2017
To begin to integrate the EveryPolitician dataset into Wikidata.
Indigo Trust - Continued work on parliamentary transparency and public services in Africa
£40,000 23/02/2017
To support parliamentary transparency and public services delivery work.
David & Elaine Potter Foundation - Core funding
£30,000 15/03/2016
12
Core funding
Indigo Trust - Parliamentary monitoring in Africa
£40,000 29/07/2015
To cover core costs for their team to work with partner organisations in African countries to develop and improve upon civic websites for parliamentary monitoring and citizen feedback.
Indigo Trust - Further development of democratic engagement tools in Africa
£40,000 05/02/2014
To enable mySociety to develop new democratic engagement tools in conjunction with African organisations and to provide ongoing support to existing parliamentary monitoring sites in South Africa and ....more
Indigo Trust - Mzalendo
£40,000 18/12/2012
Towards the cost of Mzalendo expansion programme in Africa, which provides parliamentary monitoring services.
Indigo Trust - DIY mySociety products
£40,000 14/06/2011
To help develop mySociety's digital political engagement tools, so they can be adopted and replicated more easily by others.
Esmee Fairbairn - Grant to UK Citizens Online Democracy (mySociety)
£67,500 29/04/2009
36
Towards Core costs Towards the salary of a software developer to engage more people in civic and democratic life via the internet.
Indigo Trust - Towards costs of a programmer
£120,000 05/02/2009
Towards costs of a programmer.
Show more rows

Data sourced from Donors via 360 Giving

How is it governed?

Trustees (8)
Current Trustees appointed
Gender Split
Based on 7/8 persons

Age Range of Trustees: 38-60
Legal constitution
  • Charitable company registered in England & Wales on 01/07/1999, number: 1076346
  • Registered at Companies House on 12/11/1996, number: 03277032
Gift Aid
  • Registered with HMRC for Gift Aid
Policies in force
  • Bullying and harassment policy and procedures
  • Complaints handling
  • Complaints policy and procedures
  • Conflicting interests
  • Financial reserves policy and procedures
  • Internal charity financial controls policy and procedures
  • Internal risk management policy and procedures
  • Investment
  • Paying staff
  • Risk management
  • Serious incident reporting policy and procedures
  • Social media policy and procedures
  • Trustee conflicts of interest policy and procedures
  • Trustee expenses policy and procedures
  • Volunteer management
Filing Record
20 returns made; AR10: 95 days late, AR09: 135 days late, AR08: 526 days late, AR07: 892 days late, AR06: 238 days late, AR05: 600 days late, AR04: 975 days late,
Main office

MYSOCIETY
483 GREEN LANES
LONDON
N13 4BS

Objectives

TO CONDUCT AND PROMOTE RESEARCH INTO THE USE AND EFFECTS OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CONTEXT OF THE OPERATION OF ANYBODY OR BODIES WHICH HAS OR HAVE AN ELECTORATE ( HEREINAFTER CALLED DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES) AND TO DISSEMINATE THE USEFUL RESULTS OF SUCH RESEARCH FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC

Defined Area of Benefit:

NOT DEFINED

Data Sources

Charity Commission for England and Wales
360 Giving
CharityBase
Authorised officials of this charity can add information to this page (including a Donate Now button) for no cost

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