Kulea’s Critical Needs and Operations Fund supports USA expenses, NGO costs and funding gaps as well as any unexpected critical expenses.
HERE'S
HOW
U.S.A. EXPENSES
There are costs to operate a USA based non-profit organization. We work hard to keep expenses down and one way has been to office out of homes for the past 15 years. With significant growth, one day Kulea Villages may need a physical office in the United States, but for now we are happy with working remotely. Our current USA Expenses include salaries for 3 part-time and one full time employee, postage, phone expenses, website maintenance, print materials such as brochures, Executive Director’s travel, international wire fees, payroll taxes, etc.
NGO
COSTS
In Tanzania and Kenya we have established non-profit organizations called Kulea Childcare Villages but they are Non-Governmental Organizations NGOs (like a non-profit organization, but called an NGO in Africa). Our two NGOs have operational expenses such as an annual post office box fee, government filing fees, bank fees, professional fees (i.e. paying a lawyer to help us with an employment contract or an accountant to do our annual audit), payroll taxes, a work/residence permit for full-time American employees based in Tanzania, the Country Director’s Housing allowance, etc. Our NGOs each have a Board of Directors.
FUNDING GAPS
At Kulea Villages, our goal is to have enough sponsors to fully cover all expenses of the child sponsorship program and likewise enough to cover all expenses of the Maisha Matters baby program. As of 2025, sponsors supporting Kulea’s school children are covering 100% of the expenses for our Child Sponsorship Programs (this assumes all sponsors continue supporting all year). If we lose sponsors and cannot replace them quickly, we end up with a funding gap which is covered by the Critical Needs & Operations fund.
We have less sponsors supporting the new Maisha Matters program than supporting child sponsorship. Maisha Matters sponsors plus Forever Projects’ support combined only covers 52% of the expenses of the program. The other 48% (about $50,000 usd) comes from our Critical Needs & Operations Fund.
Unexpected Critical Expenses
We never know what surprise awaits us and we do not budget a category called “surprises” or “miscellaneous.”. This year’s surprise was huge: the landlord for our office property (we lease the office) decided he wants to tear down the house and build apartments so he asked us to move. Wow! This will be a big unexpected expense. Moving expenses and rebuilding the outside teaching space were not in our budget for 2025, so this expense will come from the Critical Needs & Operations fund. We are estimating the total cost of this move to be $9,050. Based on all the above information, it is so important that we raise full funding for this budget area each year. For 2025 the income needed for this fund is $155,000.
