The directors present their annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 March 2025.

The principal activity of the company continued to be that of investigating on a not-for-profit basis the actors, technologies, and systems that enable and profit from human rights abuses, international crimes, and environmental harm.

We work hand-in-hand with community organisations, NGOs, journalists, public interest lawyers, and intergovernmental bodies to seek truth and justice for those affected.

Our work feeds into legal proceedings, regulatory action, investigative reporting and advocacy campaigns.

Alongside conducting investigations, FIND develops and provides research and case management tools, workshops, reference materials, and mentorship to partners in order to build and strengthen their financial investigative capacity.

Our mission and purpose

Mission - Through rigorous investigations and capacity-building, we support civil society in pursuing justice, defending the rights of people and the environment, and holding perpetrators and their enablers to account.

Purpose - FIND leverages financial investigations as a tool in civil society’s pursuit of justice. We work alongside our partners to open avenues for truth, accountability, reparations for those affected, and guarantees of non-repetition.

Organisational Review and Impact

FIND refined its activities to the five following programmatic areas in this financial year:

• International Crimes: We investigate the perpetrators, financiers and facilitators fuelling, enabling and benefiting from atrocities and grave human rights violations. 

• Tech Accountability: We identify the network of individuals and companies developing, commercialising and distributing technologies that curtail freedoms and democratic engagement.

• Environmental Justice: We map the companies, industries and supply chains fuelling and benefitting from environmental harm.

• Social Justice: We provide actionable information to organisations challenging unfair systems and deep-rooted corruption disproportionately impacting indigenous communities, minorities, underrepresented communities, and marginalised groups.

• Fair Labour: We investigate individuals and companies who commit human trafficking and modern slavery, as well as those who engage in exploitative employment practices. We trace their assets to support people affected to access compensation.

FIND appointed three advisors during this financial year - Daniella Ikawa, Montse Ferrer and Tim Cooke-Hurle - to support programmatic strategy, case development and coalition-building.

Highlights and impacts of this year’s work have included:

• Contributing to sanctions designations aimed at tackling war crimes and human rights violations against companies and individuals engaged in the arms and fuel trade in Eurasia

• Supporting legal interventions for accountability by mapping corporate structures and supply chains involving conflict-affected gold from North Africa and refineries in the Gulf and Europe

• Demonstrating the viability of a claim against a government that deployed spyware on a human rights defender by conducting a sovereign asset trace

• Raising public awareness of the corporations profiting from externalised border violence by investigating companies involved in developing border technologies

• Strengthening media reporting in order to raise public awareness of harmful private sector activity by providing investigative support to dozens of NGOs and journalists researching harmful surveillance technologies

• Investigating a large European conglomerate that manipulated its corporate structure to ‘greenwash’ its continued involvement in coal and fossil fuel exploitation. You can read the report here.

• Supporting the establishment of a transnational legal coalition that brings together investigators, journalists, lawyers and local communities in pursuit of environmental justice by completing exploratory research for strategic litigation

• Providing vital pro bono asset tracing to legal teams working with survivors of trafficking and modern slavery to pursue compensation claims.

• Upskilling dozens of individuals from civil society organisations and international tribunals on financial investigations research methodologies, resources, and digital security through trainings, a guide to asset tracing, and internal research tools.

On the operational side, Louisa Leeper and Chris Delaney stepped down as board directors in order to create greater separation between the board and executive team. FIND appointed a new director, Cyrus Benson, a dual-qualified New York/English lawyer and specialist in international arbitration. Finally, FIND revised its memorandum and articles of association in anticipation of submitting an application to the Charity Commission for charitable status.

Funding

FIND receives income from grant funding and commissioned work charged at cost. In 2024/25, 51% of FIND’s income was made up of grant funding, with the remaining revenue from commissioned investigations and capacity building. We are thankful to Open Society Foundations, Oak Foundation and New Venture Fund for their ongoing support. And we are grateful to our diverse and growing group of project funders and partners for their continued commitment to our work and to the impact of financial investigations in civil society.

Financial Results

Income

FIND recorded income of £562k (2024: £504k) and gross surplus of £484.6k (2024: £405k), as our casework and capacity building programmes grew. We posted a surplus before tax of £37.2k (2024: £48k) which resulted in a tax charge of £7.5k. The surplus resulted from higher than budgeted income from commissioned investigations and capacity building during the financial year, with several projects completed earlier than planned and recognised in this financial year.

Cash reserves as at 31 March 2025 were £246k and will support ongoing operations and the delivery of our programmatic work in the year ahead.

Costs

Currently, all staff costs — including time spent directly delivering projects — are accounted for as administrative overheads, rather than allocated to specific project delivery lines. FIND is considering adopting a more detailed cost allocation method to better reflect direct costs. These direct costs represent 70% of FIND’s overall expenditure and include the salaries of the investigative team and subscriptions to research databases. The remaining 30% of FIND’s cost base are administrative overheads.

The directors who held office during the year and up to the date of signature of the financial statements were as follows:

This report has been prepared in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies entitled to the small companies exemption.

For the financial year ended 31 March 2025 the company was entitled to exemption from audit under section 477 of the Companies Act 2006 relating to small companies.

The members have not required the company to obtain an audit of its financial statements for the year in question in accordance with section 476.

The directors acknowledge their responsibilities for complying with the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 with respect to accounting records and the preparation of financial statements.

These financial statements have been prepared and delivered in accordance with the provisions applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime.

The directors of the company have elected not to include a copy of the income and expenditure account within the financial statements.true

Financial Investigations for Non-Profit Design Ltd is a private company limited by guarantee incorporated in England and Wales. The registered office is Ground Floor, 1 - 7 Station Road, Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 1HT.

These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with FRS 102 “The Financial Reporting Standard applicable in the UK and Republic of Ireland” (“FRS 102”) and the requirements of the Companies Act 2006 as applicable to companies subject to the small companies regime. The disclosure requirements of section 1A of FRS 102 have been applied other than where additional disclosure is required to show a true and fair view.

The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the company. Monetary amounts in these financial statements are rounded to the nearest £.

The financial statements have been prepared under the historical cost convention. The principal accounting policies adopted are set out below.

Income and expenses are included in the financial statements as they become receivable or due. Income received in advance of due performance under a contract is accounted for as deferred income until earned.

Research expenditure is written off against surplus in the year in which it is incurred. Identifiable development expenditure is capitalised to the extent that the technical, commercial and financial feasibility can be demonstrated.

Tangible fixed assets are initially measured at cost and subsequently measured at cost or valuation, net of depreciation and any impairment losses.

Depreciation is recognised so as to write off the cost or valuation of assets less their residual values over their useful lives on the following bases:

The gain or loss arising on the disposal of an asset is determined as the difference between the sale proceeds and the carrying value of the asset, and is credited or charged to surplus or deficit.

At each reporting period end date, the company reviews the carrying amounts of its tangible assets to determine whether there is any indication that those assets have suffered an impairment loss. If any such indication exists, the recoverable amount of the asset is estimated in order to determine the extent of the impairment loss (if any). Where it is not possible to estimate the recoverable amount of an individual asset, the company estimates the recoverable amount of the cash-generating unit to which the asset belongs.

Cash and cash equivalents are basic financial assets and include cash in hand, deposits held at call with banks, other short-term liquid investments with original maturities of three months or less, and bank overdrafts. Bank overdrafts are shown within borrowings in current liabilities.

The company has elected to apply the provisions of Section 11 ‘Basic Financial Instruments’ and Section 12 ‘Other Financial Instruments Issues’ of FRS 102 to all of its financial instruments.

Financial instruments are recognised in the company's balance sheet when the company becomes party to the contractual provisions of the instrument.

Financial assets and liabilities are offset, with the net amounts presented in the financial statements, when there is a legally enforceable right to set off the recognised amounts and there is an intention to settle on a net basis or to realise the asset and settle the liability simultaneously.

Basic financial assets, which include debtors and cash and bank balances, are initially measured at transaction price including transaction costs and are subsequently carried at amortised cost using the effective interest method unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the transaction is measured at the present value of the future receipts discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial assets classified as receivable within one year are not amortised.

Financial liabilities and equity instruments are classified according to the substance of the contractual arrangements entered into. An equity instrument is any contract that evidences a residual interest in the assets of the company after deducting all of its liabilities.

Basic financial liabilities, including creditors, are initially recognised at transaction price unless the arrangement constitutes a financing transaction, where the debt instrument is measured at the present value of the future payments discounted at a market rate of interest. Financial liabilities classified as payable within one year are not amortised.

The tax expense represents the sum of the tax currently payable.

The tax currently payable is based on taxable surplus for the year. Taxable surplus differs from net profit as reported in the income and expenditure account because it excludes items of income or expense that are taxable or deductible in other years and it further excludes items that are never taxable or deductible. The company’s liability for current tax is calculated using tax rates that have been enacted or substantively enacted by the reporting end date.

The costs of short-term employee benefits are recognised as a liability and an expense, unless those costs are required to be recognised as part of the cost of stock or fixed assets.

The cost of any unused holiday entitlement is recognised in the period in which the employee’s services are received.

Termination benefits are recognised immediately as an expense when the company is demonstrably committed to terminate the employment of an employee or to provide termination benefits.

Payments to defined contribution retirement benefit schemes are charged as an expense as they fall due.

Rentals payable under operating leases, including any lease incentives received, are charged to profit or loss on a straight line basis over the term of the relevant lease except where another more systematic basis is more representative of the time pattern in which economic benefits from the leases asset are consumed.

In the application of the company’s accounting policies, the directors are required to make judgements, estimates and assumptions about the carrying amount of assets and liabilities that are not readily apparent from other sources. The estimates and associated assumptions are based on historical experience and other factors that are considered to be relevant. Actual results may differ from these estimates.

The estimates and underlying assumptions are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Revisions to accounting estimates are recognised in the period in which the estimate is revised where the revision affects only that period, or in the period of the revision and future periods where the revision affects both current and future periods.

The average monthly number of persons (including directors) employed by the company during the year was:

The company is limited by guarantee, not having a share capital and consequently the liability of members is limited, subject to an undertaking by each member to contribute to the net assets or liabilities of the company on winding up such amounts as may be required not exceeding £1.

During the year, Laura Bingham was paid compensation of £2,000 to cover the 2024 and 2025 calendar year (2024 - £4,000).

There were no other related party transactions in the year. (2024 - A total of £89 was paid to Long Ashes Services Limited in relation to two travel expense claims made by Simon Lawton).

From time to time, Financial Investigations for Non-Profit Design Ltd may report a surplus. This is reinvested to build capacity or provide pro bono investigation services if cash funds permit.