A letter from Gabi Hollows

The Foundation now operates and supports programs reaching millions of people every year. In the past few years we have more than tripled the number of people we reach with sight saving interventions - from 56,000 in 2005 to 176,472 in 2008.

These results are simply not possible unless an organization is well governed and managed - and The Foundation is. In fact in 2008 The Foundation was awarded Best Practice Not For Profit by The Givewell Good Giving Guide.

The nature of our international work is that we must fund multi-year programs if they are to be successful and sustainable. This requires maintaining some financial reserves to meet our commitments in developing countries and Indigenous Australia.

It would be irresponsible to let these future project reserves sit idle until they are needed. The Foundation rightly engages professional fund managers to invest these funds in a prudent and conservative way. Like many Australian organisations, our investments took a hit in the recent financial crisis and we gave a full and honest account of these largely book value losses to our members in our 2008 annual report. We are happy to report now that the realised losses have been fully recovered.

And your claim that The Foundation has not made available its 2008 annual report and financial accounts is wrong. They were published on our web site in May and have stayed there ever since.

The Foundation already punches above its weight in the eradication of avoidable blindness around the world and will continue to do so in 2010.

Fred would be proud of what we are achieving. And he would have been angered by your article - as am I.

Gabi Hollows

Founding Director

The Fred Hollows Foundation