Between 1999 and 2002, only 79 percent of the 349 charities registered in Bermuda filed a financial report.

And less than half of these charities reported support from donations.

Some of the charities that failed to submit financial reports during this period included, among others, The Salvation Army, The Allan Vincent Foundation, Bermuda Diabetes Association, Bermuda Hospice Trust, Teen Haven, St. John Ambulance Brigade, Bank of Bermuda Foundation, Eliza Dolittle Society, Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, Bermuda Biological Station for Research, Youth Net, The Coalition for the Protection of Children, PALS and Bermuda Feline Assistance Bureau.

That?s according to a 2002 report compiled by the Centre on Philanthropy and The Centre on Nonprofits and Philanthropy (CNP) at the Urban Institute based in Washington DC.

Charitable organisations have always played a vital role in addressing Bermuda?s most pressing needs, contributing to community health and providing a better quality of life for the Island?s citizens.

Before the report, very little information was available on who benefited from their programmes, what exactly they did and more importantly, what their sources of income were, or how they spent valuable donations.

An updated report is due in two months and since then, 330 of the 361 registered charities have filed financial reports, which according to the chairman of the Centre on Philanthropy, Cummings Zuill, is a good start, but there are still problems.

Mr. Zuill said the project, launched in November 2002, planned to collect publicly available data on charities and create an initial portrait of the sector, identifying areas lacking in information and ultimately making recommendations on how the additional data could best be collected in the future.

According to the final report, of the 349 charities registered in Bermuda up until 2002, only 276 filed financial reports.

Registered charities are required to submit an annual financial report each year within six months of the close of their fiscal year.

One charity only filed a report for 1994 in July 2002 and of the 349, only 217 organisations had submitted ?current? budgets for 1999 to 2002 ? of which only 206 contained accurate financial totals, including total revenue, expenses and net income.

However, when it came to charities that had failed to file any financial reports, Mr. Zuill was quick to add that sometimes financial statements were reported as ?miss-filed at the Registrars Office, or missing in the mail?.

He said these were just some of the problems they faced when compiling the new report due in March.

Another problem, he said, was the outdated and rather confusing Charity Act which he said charity commissioners, of which he is one of several on the Island, are working on revising.

According to the final report, financial reports that did find their way to the Registry Office were in a wide variety of formats and some of the submissions were found to be inaccurate, incomplete, or confusing.

Of the 349 registered charities, 73 of these contained no financial data at all and only 206 of the 217 reports could be used. This limited data on the 206 charities that reported usable financial information for the years 1999 and forward, was used for the report and ultimately illustrated the need for better information.

The 206 charities reported a total of $166.4 million in annual revenues and $154.8 million in annual expenses. This includes the Bermuda Hospitals Board ? that reported $111.6 million in revenues and about $109.8 million in expenses for the period 1999 ? 2002.

Including the Bermuda Hospitals Board, the health subsector is by far the largest, with 67 percent of the total revenues reported.

However, if excluded, education becomes the largest category with $12.5 million in revenues and 23 percent of the remaining revenues.

The 30 reporting arts organisations together added another $8 million in revenues, with recreation and sports following with 25 charities with revenues totalling $5.3 million.

Human Services charities reported revenues of $2.8 million, but only 23 of the 44 filed financial reports which made the category underrepresented.

While churches in Bermuda are not required to register as charities, 12 organisations coded as religious were included in the report with revenues totalling $2.1 million. These revenues did not include charitable dollars given to Bermuda churches.

When it came to expenses, only 11 charities have between $1 million and $5 million in annual expenses and 123 charities had less than $100,000 in annual expenses.

There was a problem obtaining additional detail on revenue, as only 140 charities reported support from donations and only 28 reporting Government support. Because of this lack of information, no analysis was possible.

The Urban Institute ended its report by making several recommendations to the Centre on Philanthropy, including ways to better report to the Registry, including financial documentation and suggested a survey of all charities in Bermuda.

Which is exactly what the Centre did ? a survey, or at least they tried.

?With the help of volunteers we?ve managed to complete some 150 questionnaires about local charities, but it took so long that the information we did have was becoming quickly outdated, so we decided to just go with what we had,? he said.

He said an updated report for the period 2002-2003 was expected in March which included information from the survey as well as the 330 financial reports that were filed with the Registrar before June 2004.