It’s All About The Money
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Posted by: Nik ® 05/10/2007, 10:23:16 Author Profile Alert Forum Admin

Well maybe It’s All About The Money is an overstatement but take away the money and the wealthy people who influence Rawat’s organisations and there is not much left. Unfortunately most of the financial activities are hidden from public view and the only regularly updated sources are those related to Elan Vital UK and TPRF. The latest EV UK accounts (2005) can be viewed here:  http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/AccountListing.asp?charitynumber=1016818  For those who don’t want to do their own bean counting exploration – here is a summary: DONATIONS:  Slightly down on 2004 at  £1,396,059 compared to £1,427, 897 EV has finally begun (in accordance with best practice) to show separately those donations which attract tax refunds under the Gift Aid scheme, although they still don’t show the Government’s contribution (28%) as a separate figure. For 2005 the approximate breakdown is £863,270 Gift Aid donations attracting an additional £241,700 payout from the Inland Revenue. The Gift Aid Scheme figures allow some estimation of the number of UK premies who are still supporting EV with a ‘tithe’. Allowing a monthly bank transfer figure of £50 there appear to be less than 1500 UK premies actually supporting EV on a regular basis.   Looking at the longer term trends, adjusting for Inflation EV UK is looking at an 8% fall in donations over the five years 2002 - 2005, this is notable when compared to a near tripling of donations in the 7 years 1996 to 2002.  It looks as though the millennium may well have been Rawat’s high point. EVENT RECEIPTS: One reason why earlier donations figures may be skewed in relation to more recent statements is that EV (in common with other Charities) may have included registration fees and ticket income as Donations. This practice is no longer tolerated so from 2003 EV has had to give a separate figure:  2003 - £525,139; 2004- £565,030; 2005- £116,101 In 2004 EV tried levying very high ticket prices, clearly this yielded profit, although it also caused a deal of upset amongst poorer premies. In 2005 Rawat did only one large venue performance in the UK and the pricing policy was relaxed. Presumably the calculation was that remies wouldn’t pay to see Rawat and buy The Keys. THE KEYS: 2005 was the ‘year of The Keys’. If nothing else The Keys helped continue the reinvigoration of EV UK’s trading arm which had all but become inactive by 2003. In 2004 Trading activity was markedly up and brought in £344,411, requiring EV to buy materials (likely purchased from EV US) costing £151,989; in 2005 The Keys operation saw sales leap to £432,946 and purchasing of materials jump to £312,757. GRANTS: The primary business of EV UK is raising money to ship abroad. In only one year between 2001 and 2005 did less than half of EV UK’s net income (excluding sales and licensing fees paid to EVUS and TPRF) get sent abroad, even then the total for Grants was 47% of net Income. The five year average is 58% of annual Income distributed to Rawat’s overseas operations. In 2005 the figures were Elan Vital Foundation      £558,152 Elan Vital Inc. US           £82,476 Elan Vital Australia         £194,000 Elan Communications     £172,820 TPRF                            £29,473 The five year average paid to the Swiss based EVF, is  £460,00 per annum, for EV US it is £270,00 (including £534,000 in 2004 alone), EV Australia is £89,000 and Elan Communications (the Spanish set up which purchases Rawat’s European broadcasts) is £136,000. TPRF got £55,800 in 2004 for the first time. UK premies apparently get the choice of nominating their donations either to go to the ‘international effort’ or to UK based activities.  Even so many of them must wonder what on earth actually happens to all this money when disappears across the horizon. How much for instance, of the £194,000 sent to Australia in 2005 was used in persecuting John MacGregor ? N Modified by Nik at Thu, May 10, 2007, 10:25:33

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Re: It’s All About The Money Re: It’s All About The Money -- Nik Top of thread Archive Posted by: tommo ® 05/10/2007, 15:16:06 Author Profile Alert Forum Admin Nik, Interesting analysis.  I am not very clued up about finances but even given that 60% of UK EV imcome is sent abroad (for who knows what) I still find it hard to see what EV do with the remaining 40% of UK monies?  The running costs of a single short programme (e.g the 2005 Wembley arena event) could not have amounted to much and apart from that more or less everything seemed to be local and self funded by volunteers anyway.  Even the invitation cards and DVDs for handing out we paid for? I have a personal interest since I was silly enough to have donated some part of it...and at about the average 'active' premie rate that you indicated plus additional for programmes etc .  BTW the 2005 event (17'th July at Wembley in a large 'air hall' in which the cooling had failed and which became unbearably hot) was not actually that cheap.  I paid £40 for my hour or so (and EV must have had some sort of rebate because of the cooling failure..?). so anyway..~ £800k sent abroad, £170 k on communications (whatever that is?!) and £450k still somehow spent in the UK on single 1 hour event with Rawat, a pile of 'materials',  the running of a few video showings and local events etc around the country.  Seems an awful lot of money for nothing tangible.  I suppose that is the just the way with priceless gifts.  Oh well best Tim Previous Recommend Current page Next Re: It’s All About The Money Re: Re: It’s All About The Money -- tommo Top of thread Archive Posted by: PatD ® 05/10/2007, 22:09:38 Author Profile Alert Forum Admin It's intriguing isn't it, how they move the money around, not exactly robbing Peter to pay Paul because I'm sure it's all perfectly legal, but all the same I think this is the philosophic vision behind the whole set up, & always has been. ....£450k still somehow spent in the UK on single 1 hour event with Rawat, a pile of 'materials',  the running of a few video showings and local events etc around the country. The way I read it they spent £88,602 on Branch events, which works out at £65.53 subsidy for every local event, using their number of 1352 such happenings in 2005. The last time I went to one of those was probably about 9 yrs ago. The venue was the back room of a cheap hotel, the tv/video had been donated by someone, there were 10 or 12 people in the audience & a collection plate for donations at the door. I'd guess that the cost of the room was covered by the money on the plate, around £30. Which means that there's probably some sort of internal laundering & diversion of funds going on, but if the faithful don't object, then why should anyone else.............it's their Charity after all. Previous Recommend Current page Next Re: It’s All About The Money Re: Re: It’s All About The Money -- PatD Top of thread Archive Posted by: lesley ® 05/10/2007, 22:23:39 Author Profile Alert Forum Admin In Australia the bulk of the money it cost to run local programs was the fee to EV - those videos don't come cheap ya know. Wonderfully I actually can't remember the details!  but we paid a royalty, which was a proportion of the cost that EV Australia paid for the right to show the videos. Previous Recommend Current page Next Re: It’s All About The Money Re: Re: It’s All About The Money -- PatD Top of thread Archive Posted by: Nik ® 05/11/2007, 08:37:49 Author Profile Alert Forum Admin >The way I read it they spent £88,602 on Branch events, which works out at £65.53 subsidy for every local event, using their number of 1352 such happenings in 2005.< Charities are required to account for all the activities that take place in their names. So if an event is advertised as being held by Elan Vital, any funds collected there or if other resources are used to underwrite the event EV should include all of that as direct donations. So the £65.53 should not be a subsidy but a reflection of the actual average cost. Whether it is or nor is another matter. I would be quite surprised though if the Charity's accounts were anything other than in good order. The current regulatory regime allows EV to do all that it wants to do - i.e ship funds off shore where no questions regarding use of those funds can be asked (although this may well change next year when new legislation begins to bite). Actually the figures allocated to the Branch, National and International categories may anyway be largely notional - for instance they appear to include staff costs, so the attendance of one of EV's four 'Field Workers' would be costed against a Branch Event - presumably at an hourly rate, together with oncosts such as phone calls, travel, overnight accommodation etc. I have been told by one person who was once involved in managing EV finances at a local level that she was asked on several occaisions to arrange international cash transfers via a personal account. However I have no means of verifying this and anyway this may have had nothing to do with EV and have merely been a bit of private enterprise on the part of some EV insiders who were simply using premie contacts by taking the "Lord's name in vain". Nik Modified by Nik at Fri, May 11, 2007, 08:42:41 Previous Recommend Current page Next Re: It’s All About The Money Re: Re: It’s All About The Money -- tommo Top of thread Archive Posted by: Nik ® 05/11/2007, 08:11:10 Author Profile Alert Forum Admin How EV UK spends it’s money   >Seems an awful lot of money for nothing tangible.<   The conclusion has to be that the whole operation is ‘crap’. The problem for EV is that it is only able to recruit from a very narrow pool. Any other charity or business with a turnover of £2 million plus would be able to recruit from 80% of the entire UK workforce. EV can choose only from about 1500 people all of whom are over fifty and have very limited frames of reference. Still EV’s 8 staff represent a total annual cost of £171,202 with an average salary of £19,500, and it seems the job may include international travel as the Trustees put it:   Representatives of the Charity meet regularly throughout the year with representatives of these 0rganisations, including, in 2005, in New Delhi (February and November) Miami Beach (July) Lisbon (July) Brisbane (September). These meetings provide a forum for exchange of ideas, and feedback on international activities, many of which are supported by grants from the Charity.   Although as the statement makes no clarification of who or on what basis these ‘representatives’ were selected it maybe that individuals travelled at their own at not the Charity’s expense.   The 2005 presentation of the accounts makes fine analysis of expenditure somewhat opaque – the 2004 presentation gives the following breakdown of the bulk of non grant expenditure:   Hall Hire                                  £218,832 Equipment Hire                        £160,705 Educational Materials(sic)         £65,599      Travel & Accommodation          £64,625 Office Expenses                       £249,108 Audit Fee                                 £7,050 Miscellaneous                          £86,620     Re: self funding locally – see my reply to Pat’s post   Nik Previous Recommend Current page Next Re: We call the Darshan trips Fringe Benefits in Oztralia Re: Re: It’s All About The Money -- Nik Top of thread Archive Posted by: ocker ® 05/11/2007, 15:51:52 Author Profile Alert Forum Admin Without regular darshan how could the Representatives of the Charity be inspired to keep the English premies inspired to keep propagation happening at the incredible level of it's current success? 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