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Transparency

Transparency is important to us. Therefore, we have joined the Initiative for a Transparent Civil Society, which defines ten basic points that every civil society organization should make available to the public. We commit ourselves to making these ten pieces of information available to the public via our website and annual reports, and to keeping them up to date.

Board

Stella Deetjen

Chairwoman
born 1970

Frank Gross

Deputy Chairman
born 1969

Ulf Hordorff

Financial Director
born 1958

Transparency

Exemption Notice

You can find our current exemption notice here.

Statute

You can find our statute here.

Annual Report

You can find our financial report from the years:

2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 •

Ten transparency information for the public:

1. Name, location, address, and year of establishment of our organization

Back to Life e.V., Louisenstraße 117 61348 Bad Homburg v.d.H. / Germany. Back to Life e.V. is a non-profit association founded in 1996, based in Bad Homburg, and registered in the association register of the Bad Homburg district court under the number VR 1898.
2. Complete statute and goals of our association

You can find our statute here. Back to Life e.V. supports and promotes the improvement of the living conditions of disadvantaged people in Nepal through development aid as “help for self-help”, as well as humanitarian aid in natural disasters and crises.

Our goals in Nepal

  • Goal 1: Improved access to and quality of school education.
  • Goal 2: Improvement of health, in particular increased access to professional obstetric care and medical services in rural areas, as well as health education.
  • Goal 3: Establish drinking water and sanitation supply in remote villages.
  • Goal 4: Better access to clean energy in rural areas and protection of natural resources.
  • Goal 5: Support for sustainable economic development.

4. Recognition as a non-profit organization, exemption notice

Our association, Back to Life e.V., was recognized as a non-profit by the Bad Homburg tax office under the tax number 0325061673. We are exempt from corporation tax pursuant to § 5 para. 1 no. 9 of the Corporate Income Tax Act and from trade tax pursuant to § 3 no. 6 of the Trade Tax Act because we serve “exclusively and directly tax-privileged charitable and non-profit purposes in the sense of §§ 51 ff. AO”. This entitles us to issue donation confirmations. This was last certified to us by the tax office on March 17, 2020:

5. Name and function of the key decision-makers of our association

The board of the association consists of the Chairwoman, the second (deputy) chairman, and the financial director, and is elected by the general assembly for three years. Each member of the board is authorized to represent the association alone.

The last board election took place on November 3, 2022. Chairwoman and Managing Director: Stella Deetjen, Deputy Chairman: Frank Gross, Financial Director: Ulf Hordorff

6. Activities of our association

We report on our annual activities in the form of annual reports (since 2016) and previous activity reports. We provide these here. Additionally, we report at least twice a year in our magazines about association activities and the use of our donations on the ground in Nepal.

You can find our magazines here. Anyone interested can subscribe to the magazine free of charge via our website. We report even more regularly on our homepage under the category “News” and on our Facebook page about the activities in our projects.

7. Staff structure

The board of Back to Life e.V. acts voluntarily.

The German team, in addition to the founder and managing director Stella Deetjen, consists of five permanent employees who work in the areas of organizational development, communication, accounting, administration, website, media design, project and financial coordination. In addition, we are actively supported by several volunteers.

Back to Life Nepal employs eight permanent Nepalese staff members. The team has been led by Finance Director Achyut Paudel and Program Director Dikendra Dhakal since the beginning.

The efficiency of our work is based, among other things, on our small, highly professional team, a long-standing, trusting relationship with our partner organizations in Nepal (see 9. Societal connection), and the consistently participatory collaboration with the people who benefit from the projects.

Currently, a total of 89 employees of our partner organizations and Back to Life are active in our projects, some of whom come from the project areas and/or are stationed there.

8. Source of funds

An overview of the income and source of funds from the past year can be found in our annual reports (since 2016) and previously in our financial reports.

9. Legal affiliation

The implementation of our projects is carried out in accordance with Nepalese laws in partnership with local NGOs. Back to Life is currently implementing projects with the following three local NGOs: 1. Paribartan Nepal – based in Satdobato, Lalitpur. Partnership since 2009. 2. Human Rights and Environment Development Centre (HRENDC) – based in Gamgadhi Mugu. Partnership since 2010. 3. Rural Women Development Centre (RWDC), based in Parwat. Partnership since 2022. 4. Karnali Community Development Center (KCDC), based in Gamgadhi, Mugu. Partnership since 2022.

Back to Life aims for long-term partnerships with local grassroots organizations in Nepal. The organizations understand each other and work as an integrated team. Training and on-the-job coaching is part of our partnership. To ensure transparency and seriousness, all project expenses are verified quarterly by auditors.

10. Names of legal entities whose annual contribution makes up more than 10% of our total annual income

In the past years, there were no legal or natural persons whose annual contributions made up more than 10% of our total annual income.

Back to Life e.V.