This post continues my effort to follow the large gifts received by Soul61 in 2016-2019. It's best if you read the posts in order. The first post is here: Following the money - part 1: the TV connection and questions of control
One of the trustees resigned in January 2018 after four years: the well-known worship leader Tim Hughes.
A few months later Soul Survivor took part in Hope Bristol, an event:
"serving the local communities in Bristol on social action projects and sharing the good news of Jesus"
(Source: Group of companies' accounts made up to 31 December 2018 from Soul Survivor filings at Companies House, page 7)
It was a collective effort between Soul Survivor, the Hope organisation and local churches such as the Woodlands group. Soul Survivor took 473 young people along.
Aside from that, the programme of events that ran this year echoes previous years. Naturally Supernatural was now well established in the summer sequence.
But this was also a momentous year for the charity. In May, they announced they were going to cease their summer festivals, after 27 years in their current form. The now-deleted message [raises eyebrow] said things like:
"We know this will come as a shock to many but we believe that God has spoken and that this is the right time for us to step aside and make space for others to rise up. This is not a decision we have taken lightly but something we have been wrestling with for a substantial amount of time.
Our leadership team and board of trustees came to this decision unanimously and believe that, after 27 years of events, 2019 is the right time for Soul Survivor to end."
I wonder if Tim Hughes, who resigned in January, agreed with this decision?
A decision of the magnitude of closing the festival would have taken several trustees meetings to decide. Given they say they meet 3-4 times a year, I think they'll have started talking about this late in 2017 at the latest.
They go on to say:
"Soul Survivor isn’t growing as fast as it once was, and it’s hard to balance budgets whilst running a quality event, but we are in a secure financial position. This really is a decision based on what we believe God is saying"
I wonder when they started discussing this action? And when the final decision was made? It's hard to imagine going through the effort of switching locations in 2017, if you knew the festivals would stop soon.
Equally, 27 years isn't a particularly significant number. Wouldn't you stop at 25 or 30? Maybe Pilavachi's age played a part - he was 60 in 2018.
However the move came about, it was big news. The summer events represented the bulk of the work of the charity, the bulk of the income, and the bulk of the staffing needed.
Transition work began in 2018. The speakers at the summer 2018 events included people who lead other summer festivals: DTI (Dreaming The Impossible) , Limitless and the still-being-developed Satellites. I think that shows an impressive degree of organisation by Soul Survivor.
They say that bookings for Naturally Supernatural were particularly strong this year: up 19% on the year before to 3,251 delegates.
Soul Survivor reported a total income of £2,817,192. They spent £3,151,271. This loss affected their funds: at the end of the year they had £475,531 total funds, compared to £809,701 at the end of 2017. This was the third successive year making a loss.
I can't find an explicit statement about reserves in the 2018 report, but this seems low to me - less than two months' running costs for the charity.
They list 23 staff on payroll (up from 19 in 2017) this year, with a total cost of £730,622. It seems like an odd time to grow their staff, in light of the decision to end the festivals. Wouldn't one freeze recruitment?
Who were the staff ? Were they then eligible for redundancy payments the following year? Filling these extra posts was an 18% increase in staffing costs.
Two staff members had salaries in the £60,000-£70,000 bracket. I assume this was Pilavachi and Layzell, the joint Executive Directors. That is an assumption though.
Let's pause here for a minute here and ask a question I should have asked a lot earlier: how does Pilavachi lead both this charity and the church, and travel as a speaker? That seems an incredible amount of work.
Here he is, speaking at the Vineyard's DTI youth event in June of 2018, one of many speaking trips he took that year:
So, was he part-time at the church, or at the charity? There's no mention of that in the reports of either organisation.
And if he is part-time at Soul Survivor, is £60,000-£70,000 an appropriate salary?
This year the charity made gifts to Soul61 of £15,000 and £27,026.
Soul Survivor Trading made sales of £332,136 in 2018. They incurred costs of £307,543, giving a profit of £25,593. As before these figures are included in the figures quoted for income and expenditure of the charity.
Meanwhile there was a big moment for the church in June. They had a 'giving day' for the Making Room For More building project. It seems to have gone well: they received £1,900,000 in gifts and pledges.
I'm wondering about one aspect of this. Did the leaders tell the church members about the £200,000 in donations they had received in the last 2 years from YTL Utilities?
And did they know the £500,000 gift was coming at that stage? In the charity world you often have advanced warning of major gifts arriving. I wonder what they said on that 'giving day'.
Also, remember the £40,000 that was paid from Soul61 to D & J M Morgan Trust for building work? I can't see that money arrive at the church. I've checked the 2017-2018 report that covers until 31st March, and the 2018-2019 report that covers the rest of the year.
I have 5 years of reports for K & J M Morgan Trust. I notice that none of them detail incoming funds from other organisations. I presume they're rolled into the 'Donations' line, joining the gifts from church members.
I find this weak. It creates the situation where they itemise gifts to other organisations, but not gifts from other organisations. It's also inconsistent with the approach taken by the Soul61 and Soul Survivor charities.
In the 2018-2019 financial year, the church reported 18 employees, as with the year before. The total salary bill was: £477,120.
This year Bob Wallington's post is not listed as being paid for by Soul61.
As in previous years, no employees of the church were paid more than £60,000.
The total income of the church was £2,022,768, which includes the money raised on the giving day. If we remove the restricted gifts (presumably that's where the building project gifts are noted) then the total income for 2018/2019 is £963,411. Expenditure was £839,578.
And now to Soul61. In the first half of the year, the 2017-2018 cohort of Soul61 gap year students are hard at work. Their year finishes in August after the summer festivals, matching the end of the Soul61 financial year.
At this point the amount left of the first two YTL Utilities gifts is £78,461.
Can we take a moment to appreciate something? Out of just under £122,000 spent so far from the Soul61 large gifts, only about £4,000 has been spent on young leaders, which is the focus of Soul61.
A new Soul61 financial year begins in September and in November 2018 a new cohort of 18 join, having paid £6,500 in fees for the year. Two interns also join for some, or all, or the financial year.
The Soul61 filings for the 2018-2019 financial year list two employees and a salary bill of £43,652.
Soul61 were charged £10,866 by the other charities for use of their staff time. Actually, this year they provide a breakdown. That charge was all for Soul Survivor staff time. They made no use of staff time from the church.
And then, sometime before the end of 2018, or early in 2019, the third and largest gift arrives in Soul61.
£500,000
It's an out-sized gift for Soul61 - whose other income for the year is £170,609.
Will any of it be spent on young leaders? We'll see in the next post that unpacks the events of 2019:
Sources
This blog draws extensively from the annual reports of the charities. There are too many references to footnote, but you can find the whole reports here:
