Our admin fee is not about taking part of your donation for ourselves; it’s about ensuring that skilled people are able to safely deliver your donation and maximise its impact.
Meet Raya Homsi, our Senior Institutional Funding Coordinator. She lived in Damascus and worked with the United Nations before leaving the war in Syria in 2016.
Now she works to secure partnerships and institutional funding to support Human Appeal projects in Syria and around the world.
When you donate £1, just 9p goes into keeping Human Appeal running.
Another 13p goes back into raising funds – this allows us to be ready to raise awareness at a moment’s notice when tragedy strikes. Between 2019 and 2021, we grew our income by a huge 186%, allowing us to support an extra 2.8 million people, by raising funds through that small 13 pence.
Finally, and most importantly, 78p out of every £1 you donate goes straight to helping the vulnerable people who need it most. If a charity doesn’t charge an admin fee, corners have to be cut and it’s the project quality, and those who are most in need of help who are put at risk.
Our admin fee keeps us accountable, safe, and ethical, and it allows us to find the most vulnerable people in an emergency, delivering life-saving aid to them quickly and efficiently.
We’re proud of the wonderful work that our admin fee does, and we hope you are too. Explore some of the ways it changes lives below, and donate to support the life-changing impact that our admin fee has.
Charity is a gift, offering endless mercy to those who give, as well as mercy to the vulnerable people who receive it. Our admin fee helps us to get your donation to where you intended it. That’s why we like to think of it as the stamp on the envelope of your mercy.
There’s nothing like that moment when you’re close enough to hear a bomb shake your home. It’s terrifying when it’s that close and if you hear it, you’re one of the lucky ones, because it means that you’re still alive. But you never know who might have been hit while on their way to work or school. In Syria, we leave our homes in the morning but we never know if we will back in the evening, we don’t even know if we will see our loved ones again. I never thought I would make it out alive.
When I left Syria, the whole country was on fire, and every day I would hear about hundreds of people who were killed near our home. My family and I lived just outside the besieged areas, which meant that our friends and their families under siege – just 10 minutes away – were dying of starvation, and we could do nothing to help them. I was living minute-to-minute, taking each day as it came.
Changing lives, one project at a time
But I’ve made the best of my situation, and I work to support vulnerable people through a job I love. I lost my beloved fiancé in the war. It broke my heart but we always promised each other that we would fight for our people and the Syrian cause, so I owe it to him to continue this work. Together, we believed that we could hold people accountable for their actions and help Syrians to become more resilient.
Now I work with Human Appeal, and it’s my job to get our life-saving projects funded by institutional donors – such as the United Nations and governments. We implement high-quality projects that often help people in several different ways, and, once complete, we monitor the projects so that we can keep improving, and we report our work back to our supporters.
It’s a role that is full of joy for me, even though it’s challenging and demanding. I can’t count the sleepless nights I’ve spent working on proposals. But it’s all worth it when even just one project gets funding, because I think of the relief it will bring to people who are living in such hardship.
A safe space amid chaos
One of the projects that is very close to my heart is the Sakina Centre in Iraq, which has helped over 4,400 women and children in two years. We managed to raise £2 million in funding from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), which allowed us to create a safe space for women who have been affected by violence in Mosul, including survivors of gender-based violence.
The Sakina Centre helps women to recover from trauma, become active leaders in their communities, and support their families by learning new skills, such as sewing.
As a woman who has experienced the tragedies of war, I know how projects like this can transform lives and communities. Finding that one safe space amid such chaos is a lifeline that can help women to heal and lead healthy, productive and empowered lives.
Our admin fee helps us to hire people who know exactly what projects are most needed. With Raya’s expertise, we’re able to secure vital funding, allowing us to empower vulnerable people. This is just one example of how our admin fee not only covers its own cost and much more besides, but is an investment that assists the people we support.
