It’s important to us that you know exactly how we spend your money.
So here it is, in a nutshell...
We’ve done our homework
Before we spend a penny of your money, we review what the communities we work with need most.
You choose
Then we draw up a list, and it’s over to you to choose. Whatever gift you choose, you know it’s a much-needed gift to somebody, somewhere. So thank you.
Running costs
For every Oxfam Unwrapped gift you buy, a percentage is taken out to cover running costs – we do all we can to keep them as low as possible.
Making it flexible
Before you buy, there’s a little but ever so important tick box. Ticking this box means you’re happy for Oxfam to add the money you’ve spent on your gift goes into a separate pot called ‘General Funds’. This pot holds all the money that we can spend on all of Oxfam’s work around the world. But to be clear – we ONLY use your money in this way if you say we can.
Otherwise, the money goes into our ‘funding categories’.
Funding categories
The rest of the money is split into what we call ‘funding categories’ and is spent on things from that category, for example, the income raised from the toilet gift goes into the Water and Sanitation category. And it’s not just the item itself; your donation covers everything from buying it, to training communities to maintain it, to the Oxfam staff who ensure everything’s working on the ground.
You can tell which funding category your money will go into by looking at the last two letters on the gift code, for example the toilet gift has the code OU4022WS. ‘WS’ stands for ‘Water and sanitation’. See the full list of funding categories.
Your gift makes a big difference
Once your gift - together with millions of others - has been received in the community, our people get busy on the ground, reporting the difference those gifts have made, back to Oxfam HQ.
We ensure every penny counts
At Oxfam HQ, we do some intensive number crunching and audit the whole process. This gives us a picture of total money raised against total money spent for each gift.
A new gift list
Then we draw up a new gift list. Some gifts won’t make it – but that’s a good thing! It either means that gift is no longer needed or that we’ve reached our funding target for that item! We never sell gifts once they’ve exceeded their limit. The money is always channelled where it’s needed most.
Small gift... Big difference
And so the whole process of reviewing how we spend your money starts over.
Now you see - your small gift makes a big difference, to you, to someone you care about, and to the people Oxfam works with.
What does each category do?
Find out how we spend the money for each category.
Advocacy
Everyone has an opinion but sometimes it can be hard to be heard. If you buy any gift that ends with the letters AD it will help give people the knowledge and confidence to get their voice heard and change their lives for the better - for example helping women and men to speak out against domestic violence, defending indigenous land rights or training communities to resolve conflict peacefully.
