The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) has faced some questions over how it spends the proceeds from the lotteries it organises after the charity revealed that over 74% of the proceeds raised are spent on expenses and administration.
The non-profit organisation reported that 20% of proceeds – which is the minimum amount set by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) – help fund the charity’s vital work, and the remainder is used to provide the prizes’ funding.
As reported by The Sunday Telegraph, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals raised a total of £3,335,704 through the large variety of its lotteries in 2022. This means that the charity spent approximately £2.5 million on expenses. The information was confirmed on the official RSPCA’s website, which states that its Weekly Lotteries, Quarterly Superdraws, and seasonal Raffles helped the charity raise more than £3.335 million from ticket sales. According to the data shared on the organisation’s web platform, 74.16% of the money was spent on expenses, another 20.07% was used to fund the work of the RSPCA in England and Wales, while 5.77% was spent on prizes.
The aforementioned figures were based on the Lottery Submissions that the RSPCA made to the country’s gambling regulatory body in the 2022 calendar year.
The organisation runs a weekly lottery with a £1 entry fee that offers a £1,000 jackpot, as well as up to £10,000 in quarterly “superdraws”.
The UKGC Says the Gap between RSPCA Lottery Expenses and Prizes Is Too Large
The UK Gambling Commission has explained that the level of prizes and expenses funded from the proceeds must not represent such a large gap, as to reduce the profits to below 20%.
That basically means that the charity organisation has to apply no less than 20% to its purposes in order to be able to run the charity. The country’s gambling watchdog shared that proceeds can otherwise be used only to fund prizes or to pay expenses that were reasonably sustained while organising the lottery. This figure can include the cost of printing and distributing tickets, the cost of selling or supplying tickets, marketing, the salaries of the individuals running the lottery, as well as fees paid to an external lottery manager.
The lottery organised by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals offers weekly prizes of £50, £100, £150, £250, £1,000, and runner-up prizes of £10. Its Superdraws offer prizes of £2,000 plus a hamper in winter, £5,000 in spring and autumn, and £10,000 in summer. In 2022, the lottery players were provided with a 1 in 568 chance of winning the regular Weekly Lotteries.
A spokesperson for the charity confirmed that the RSPCA was trying to keep its expenses as low as possible. As part of this, it regularly reviewed the potential savings that could be made and explored whether costs could be reduced further, without any negative impact inflicted on the vital funds that are raised by the charity line with the guidelines of the UKGC.
According to media reports, the founder of The SHG help group for people who face some issues with the charity, Anne Kasica, commented that if the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was unable to match the judgement and financial competence of other non-profit organisations, the fact that it was always claiming to be facing financial difficulties was not surprising at all. Ms Kasica suggested that it was probably time for the Charity Commission to take a closer look at the financial state and proficiency of the RSPCA.
- Author
Olivia Cole
