NGOs

Definition

NGOs are private non-profit organizations, independent from government, which pursue activities to relieve suffering, to promote the interests of the poor, to protect the environment, to provide basic social services, or to undertake community development.

Profits to NGOs

80% of all profits from the slum tours go to the NGO(s) listed below after the payment of the following:

• Rs 10,000 monthly to the two owners- Chris Way and Krishna Poojari (they receive no other salary from the slum tours)
• Expenses directly relating to the slum tour activities
• General Expenses allocated proportionately to slum tour activities, such as rent, office expenses, employee salaries, car depreciation etc
• Tax payable on profits related to slum tours

In the case of the slum and sightseeing tour, 50% of the fee is allocated as slum tour income, and 50% as non-slum tour income.

The remaining 20% of profits are used to pay off loans or invested in the business

The accounts are audited by a registered auditor (see below), the figures relating to the tours put online, and the auditor puts a statement saying that this 80% criteria has been met.

If you have any further queries please go the FAQs section. Otherwise please feel free to contact us.

List of NGOs

MODERN EDUCATIONAL SOCIAL & CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (MESCO), Mahim, Mumbai.

In existence since 1968, this organization works towards helping underprivileged people of all castes and religions. It's main activities are giving educational grants, medical relief and poverty relief.

Website: http://www.mescotrust.org
Email: mescotrust@mescotrust.org
Tel: +91 (0)22 24455365/ 24448637/ 24441442

Accounts

Period ending 31 March 2006

The company made a loss of Rs 111,166 for the period ending 31 March 2006.

For slum tour activities, sales were Rs 24,164.

Neither of the owners Krishna Pujari or Chris Way have received nor have accrued any salary during this period.

For auditors confirmation of this loss and that none of the owners or shareholders have received or accrued a salary, please see his independent report.

Reasons for loss:

• We had no idea of what the customer demand would be like. We thought that it would be prudent to purchase two vehicles, which in hindsight was a mistake. The main expense was the car depreciation, which was just over Rs 45,000. The sales of Rs 24,164 was a lot less than we had expected. We had problems promoting the tours- tourists were skeptical and in some cases a little hostile to receiving flyers, and hotels were not interested- a lot of them run their own sightseeing tours.


• The company was set up in September 2005, but we had a lot of problems in obtaining a tourist permit for the two cars- we obtained these in January 2006. Yet we still incurred some costs during this period, such as office rent and some staff salaries.


• We had initial start up costs such as printing flyers and brochures, and staff training.


• We run the tours and charge the same amount per person if there is one person or five people (not for private tours). We also don′t want the price to be a hindrance- both backpackers and 5 star holidaymakers are charged the same. Financially this might be a mistake but we want as many people as possible to come on the tour.


• The loss has been mitigated by the fact that neither of the owners Krishna Pujari or Chris Way received or accrued a salary during the period.

Since we state that 80% of profits after tax from slum tour activities are donated to NGOs (charities), we realize that some customers will be concerned that no money has of yet been donated, and will probably not be donated for the accounts ended 31 March 2007. We can only say that sales have been increasing (nearly Rs 70,000 for December 2006) and we are confident that this figure will continue to rise. We had a lot of publicity in 2006, most of it very positive, and we continue to get very good reviews from our customers that go on the tour.

By declaring the salaries of the shareholders of the company, which is confirmed by the auditor, we hope to reassure customers that money is not being profited unduly.

 

Year ending 31 March 2007

The company made a loss of Rs 204,312 for the year ending 31 March 2007. The cumulative loss as at 31 March was Rs 315,477.

For slum tour activities, sales were Rs 310,419.

Krishna Pujari received a salary of Rs 89,759 for the year and Chris Way has not received any salary during this period. Neither have accrued any further amounts

For auditors confirmation of this loss and shareholders' salary details, please see his independent report.

Reasons for loss:

• Promoting the tours was difficult as explained above. We did receive a lot publicity in the national and international press which helped a lot, although we still were not in any guide books


• Depreciation was a major expense again (Rs 155,475) and we didn't use the second car enough to justify this expense.


• We still kept the prices very competitive, probably too low, for reasons explained above.

Since we hadn't of yet donated any money, we realised that we needed to persuade some people that we were genuine about our intentions, wanting to help the poorer members of Mumbai's society. To do this, we set up the Community and Education Centre in May 2007 in collaboration with the NGO “MESCO”. This will further reduce our profits, but we are thrilled by the reactions of the kids involved and the potential that it has in particular with the English classes, which are being run with the help of a language school in London.

We were mentioned in some guide books such as Lonely Planet and Rough Guides in the latter part of 2007, and January 2008 sales were over Rs 200,000. We believe that with this and many recommendations from prior customers, sales will continue to be high.

We are set to revise our prices as from customer feedback they are generally priced too low.