A sharp increase in grant funding from the Department of International Development helped Marie Stopes International grow its spending on charitable activities by 25 per cent last year.
The sexual health and family planning charity, which defines its global mission as ‘children by choice, not chance’, delivered services to more people than ever before in 2012 - a total of 13.6 million clients.
This included providing contraception to 13.6 million women, averting 5.3 million unintended pregnancies, and preventing 2.1 million pregnancies. According to its annual report and accounts just published, its services also prevented 11,300 maternal deaths and saved health systems around the world over £226m.
Overall income grew by 27 per cent to £172.1m, driven mainly by a combination of higher grant income and higher fees revenue.
Fees charged to governments for sexual and reproductive health services increased by 8.5 per cent from £79.1m to just under £86m.
But the biggest increase came from grant funders. Total grant income rose from £47.2m in 2011 to £72.9m last year, including £21m from DFID (2011: £13.5m) and £9.1m from the US Agency for International Development (2011: £2.7m).
The highest-paid employee earned £290,000-£300,000, an increase on the previous year when the highest earner received£260,000-£270,000.
In August this year, the charity announced that it had hired commercial marketing veteran Simon Cooke as its new chief executive, to replace Dana Hovig who has held the reins since 2007.
In that year, Marie Stopes’ income was £79.5m. MSI is 26th in the Charity 100 Index this year, having risen steadily through the ranks from 73rd ten years ago.
Cooke started in the role on 4 November.
2012 was the second year of the charity’s five-year strategic plan, The Power of 10. This plan, for the period 2011 to 2015, sets ambitious goals on health impact, organisational capacity-building, and revenue generation.
During 2012 the charity made a public pledge to provide family planning services to an additional ten million girls and women by 2020.
Marie Stopes International operates over 600 clinics in more than 40 countries.
