ROOM TO READ UK LIMITED

Registered charity 1125803 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register

Room to Read's goal is to create a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality. We help children in low-income communities develop literacy skills and a habit of reading, and support girls to build skills to succeed in school and negotiate key life decisions. We have benefitted more than 50 million children across 28 countries.

Causes: Education/training · The Prevention Or Relief Of Poverty · website · Get email alerts

Financial health, per its FY2024 accounts

The accounts state that the charity reported a net expenditure of £779,646 for the year, resulting in a decrease in total funds from £2,878,720 to £2,099,074. The trustees confirm the charity has a secure financial base and adequate resources to continue in operational existence for the foreseeable future. Unrestricted reserves of £556,535 are maintained to cover at least three months of UK office costs, aligning with the stated reserves policy.

Automated summary of the FY2024 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by Warner Wilde Limited. Discloses 5 of 6 completeness components.

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — Room To Read (matched by registered charity number).

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Dr. Geetha Murali — Chief Executive Officer (source)
• Heather Simpson — Chief Program Officer (source)
• Laurie McMahon — Chief Development and Communications Officer (source)
• Shari Freedman — Chief Financial Officer (source)
• Michael Bowers — Chief Program Implementation Officer (source)
• Cynthia Orme — Chief People and Technology Officer (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Funders the charity credits

Named as funders/supporters on the charity’s own website (the charity’s claim, distinct from accounts-verified grants).

• Dutch Postcode Lottery — “Dutch Postcode Lottery selects Room to Read for a three year €500,000 grant” (source page)

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook · instagram

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/12/2024)

Reported reserves equal ~3.5 months of spending — below the median for charities its size (median 4.8 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Donations and legacies (100% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 13.4% of total income — above the median for charities its size (5.2%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• DEAN HOWARD CHANchair
• DOUGLAS HILL
• Heather Simpson
• MR MARTYN CHRISTOPHER GOWAR · trustee of 1 other charity
• Shari Lynn Freedman

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Bangladesh · Burma · Cambodia · Grenada · Honduras · India · Indonesia · Jordan · Kenya · Laos · Lebanon · Malawi

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with READ FOR GOOD.

• READ FOR GOOD income £1.5m
• WORLDREADER income £100k
• THE READER ORGANISATION income £4.6m
• UNITED KINGDOM & EUROPE WORLD LITERACY FOUNDATION income £180k
• THE NATIONAL LITERACY TRUST income £14.3m
• LITERACY VOLUNTEERS income £123k

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.