Where does your money go?
Kuwi.org
Kuwi.org is a recognized non-profit organisation registered in Amsterdam. We get project-related income from individuals and companies. These structural donors are important for the continuity of our work.
During our foundation (2017) we had major investments to finance. Nonetheless, we promised that 70p of each pound donated would directly fund climate projects. To fulfil this promise, we’ve relied heavily on loan capital for funding our support activities like housing, staffing, and IT.
These investments have paid off! Our community is growing rapidly, shifting our cost-to-income ratio towards a self-sustainable organisation. This means that we are now able to invest 80p of each pound directly into climate projects!
The remaining 20%
Of course, there are other costs in addition to the objectives. We call these overhead costs. You can see how we spend this 20% in the diagram below. If the costs are lower than anticipated, the surplus goes toward our continuity reserve. We don’t aim to build up substantial equity capital.
Overhead costs
No Data Found
Merchandise
The above concerns the periodic contribution of members (companies and individuals). Of this, 80% always goes directly to the climate projects.
Kuwi.org also generates income from the sale of clothing and other merchandise. After deducting the costs (COGS) of the product, 80% of the income goes directly to climate projects. 20% is used for overhead costs.
How much does the director earn?
A popular and valid question. The director of Kuwi.org is Lisa Nguyen. Her salary is £53,124 excluding a 7% holiday allowance. No further premiums, bonuses, additions, surtaxes, or expense allowances exist. Please view all the details in our annual report.
Lisa previously worked as an Environmental Sciences teacher, but now works 36 hours a week for Kuwi.org.
Annual report
Download our full annual report below
Compliance
Transparency is operating so that it is easy for others to see what actions are being carried out.
Transparency and trust are our core values. They go hand in hand with a responsible use of your money. For those interested, you can check out our compliance ledger with our receipts and certificates – and we also publish quarterly financial reports on this site so you can see that we keep our word.
Compliance
From 2024, we will also have our partners’ projects subjected to an additional audit by Apollo Audits. This means we will engage a second, independent auditor in addition to our own audit. We chose this approach not to intervene only when there are already problems, but to actively prevent mistakes from being made.
Each project will be audited annually on site, and the audit reports will be added to the project documentation. It may not be feasible to audit all projects as early as this year, but we aim to achieve this for every project from 2025 onwards.
Modern Slavery Statement
Working with partners who share our values
As a non-profit organisation with an extensive value chain, we believe it is important to establish long-term partnerships with suppliers who share our values and culture. We aim for more than just the minimum standards, and expect our partners to do the same.
Going beyond minimum standards
As you would expect from a non-profit organisation, working primarily with other non-profit organisations, we go beyond the minimum working conditions. It is important to us that our employees are fairly remunerated and have good working conditions.
Unexpected impact: employment
Kuwi.org was founded to help in the fight against climate change. During our journey, we learned that reforestation has an unexpected impact: it creates jobs.
The increased popularity of carbon offsetting in the West has made us realise that this is a valuable side effect. It offers an opportunity to improve the quality of life of people in the bottom 10%.
Responsibility for fair working conditions
Kuwi.org takes this responsibility very seriously. We carefully select our planting partners and take full responsibility for the consequences of negligent behaviour. This includes careless auditing, monitoring and improper validation procedures.
Good working conditions include more than just a minimum wage. We believe it is important that our employees have access to healthcare, a pension fund, annual leave and sick pay.
Because tree planting is affected by weather conditions, we ensure that employees receive a full monthly minimum wage, regardless of whether weather prevents the implementation of planting projects. We believe everyone has the right to sustainable, long-term work to enable families to develop and provide for themselves.