Transparency
In order to be able to help effectively, we rely on your support and trust as donors. Only your financial support enables our work in southern Africa as well as in Germany. Therefore, a central principle of our concept is the 100% guarantee – we guarantee all donors that 100% of their donation will be received by our project partners!
How does the 100% guarantee work?
1. Efficiency
Go Ahead! supports local NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa, and does hence not need its own local structures. Therefore, the charity acts as a bridge between donors in Germany and the organisations in sub-Saharan Africa. This concept enables us to co-operate with a range of sustainable projects to provide especially effective help and efficient budgeting. We would like to maintain this principle, and improve upon it in the future.
All administrative costs (e.g. printing costs, transaction fees, transport costs, materials, and postage) are financed exclusively through membership fees and/or through advertising incomes. Donated funds are not used for these purposes.
2. Voluntary Work
None of our managing committee members or staff are paid. Everything that Go Ahead! has achieved up to now can be attributed to the voluntary commitment of our Staff. Our young team is supported in their engagement by professional mentors from, for example, the political and economic sectors. Voluntary support is always welcome and needed!
Information for donors
We strive to always keep you informed about the impact of your donations. For example, if you support our Pre-School Programme, you will receive two updates each year directly from the pre-school about their developments, news and problems that they may face.
Current reports about all the other projects we support are regularly uploaded onto our website and are published in our Newsletter. You can receive additional information upon request at info@goahead-organisation.de.
The flow of your money
Follow the journey of your donation with this Example. It is valid for every donation that Go Ahead! receives.
Annual financial report
Our finances are thoroughly scrutinised annually by our auditors. The financial report is then presented to the members at the annual general meeting. The tax office also annually examines the regularity of our finances. The correct accounting of donations is attested by the tax office by issuing a notice of exemption. The correct procedure is 100% guaranteed!
Personal contact and selective choice of projects
Through personal involvement with all project partners, we keep in close contact with the people responsible.
We keep ourselves regularly informed about the status and implementation of the projects by personally contacting our partner organisations. In this way, we can make sure that the money reaches its intended destination. Read about our recent project visits in our News Archive.
We work on a financial basis only with organisations that are registered and recognised as Public Benefit Organisations (non-profit organisations) in southern Africa, who have external auditing procedures and can prove this with the corresponding certificates: Criteria (pdf, in German).
DZI (The German Central Institute for Social Issues) Donation Seal of Approval
To be able to officially confirm our transparency henceforth, we are striving to attain the DZI Donation Seal. The application for the seal is pending and we hope that we will receive it by the start of 2011, at the latest. You are more than welcome to contact the DZI beforehand with any questions about us: sozialinfo@dzi.de or www.dzi.de.
Annual general meetings
Go Ahead! - be part of it! Our members can be part of the most important controlling body of Go Ahead!, by taking part in the Annual General Meeting. Everyone is invited to meet the staff and other members, and to find out about and be won over by the earnest and sincere work of the young aid organisation. The location and time of each meeting are announced a month in advance on the homepage and in the newsletter.