Thought for the Week: Happy New (financial) Year!
George Penaluna starts off the new financial year of the Friend with good news for subscribers
In common with all charities, The Friend Publications has a financial year end: a fixed day each year when we tot up all the ‘ins’ and all the ‘outs’ and breathe a sigh of relief that the ‘ins’ nearly always exceed the ‘outs.’ For The Friend Publications (a small, independent charity whose main function is the publication of the Friend and the Friends Quarterly), our annual day of reckoning is 30 June. While we are confident that we are on track again to break even this year (or even make a very small surplus), final figures won’t be known for another few months.
Although we rent office accommodation in Friends House, The Friend Publications is independent of Britain Yearly Meeting and has its own body of Quaker trustees. We provide an independent voice for Friends in Britain, and have done so for almost 170 years. The Friend is one of the longest running continuously published magazines in the world.
Our finances are pretty simple: about sixty-three per cent of our income is from subscribers, thirty per cent from advertisements and seven per cent from grants, donations, legacies and income on our small reserves. As you can see, without you, our steadfast subscribers and advertisers, there simply wouldn’t be a ‘Friend’ each week. Our costs are correspondingly simple: about sixty per cent goes to rent, administration and staffing and forty per cent on paper, printing and postage.
Being a charity, we are a non-profit organisation. Just like an Area Meeting, we simply have to cover our costs and, hopefully, have a little left over to carry forward each year. As a rule of thumb, to calculate the price of a subscription, we take the total budgeted cost, deduct anticipated advertisement and voluntary income and divide what is left by the number of subscribers. The more subscribers, the less each one has to pay.
‘Ah,’ you’re thinking, ‘we’re being softened up to be told the price is going up from 1 July.’ Well, no, actually. Despite the cost of mailing the Friend having increased by £2.50 per subscriber per year since April, our trustees have decided to hold subscription rates for the Friend and the Friends Quarterly at their current levels.
We appreciate the wonderful support that has been given, and continues to be given, by our readers. Accepting the difficult economic times, we do not want to burden loyal subscribers with a price increase. What we hope is that by launching a drive to recruit more subscribers, our costs will be spread across a larger constituency.
As our subscribers and readers are our best ambassadors, will you, Friends, help us increase our readership and introduce a friend to the Friend? Later this year we will be launching an ‘Introduce a Friend’ promotion, with postcards in the magazine for you to share with Friends and attenders. With your help, the Friend can have a happy new financial year in 2012-2013 and postpone any price increases for as long as possible!
George Penaluna
The advertisement manager for the Friend and the Friends Quarterly.
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