ISBT Financial Report 2023-24
Summary
This fiscal year was the first post-Covid where we have been able to return to 2 face-to-face (F2F) meetings with two regional congresses. Financially we were not able to realise our expectations of the congress result. With lower than expected income, we focused on keeping congress costs down which still resulted in a positive congress result of € 344K.
The total ISBT costs increased from €1.024K in 2022-23 to €1.275K in 2023-24.
This fiscal year we made the first payment for the development of the Blood Group Allele database which was an additional cost compared to last year. The indexation of salaries and high inflation in the Netherlands also led to an increase in office costs.
The overall result for 2023-24, after tax, was minus €160K compared to minus €383K in 2022-23. Our accumulated surplus is still on a high level of €2.083K.
Income
At the beginning of the year, we were very hopeful that as many members and the industry would attend the regional congresses as pre-pandemic. The congresses were very successful from scientific perspective and the atmosphere was great in Gothenburg and Cape Town, where delegates were very happy to present, discuss and meet each other again. However, the income from the exhibition area was lower than anticipated with many exhibitors reducing the footprint of their booths compared to previous years.
We think that budget issues and financial restrictions of the industry and also the blood services are tighter than in pre-Covid times, travel costs are higher and access to international travel is still to return to pre-pandemic levels.
The income from the royalties of Vox Sanguinis (Vox) increased this year from €165K to €238K. This is mainly due to a high number of open access articles in 2023.
Income from membership fees increased to €144K and membership is returning to the pre-Covid level. The F2F congresses contributed to this increase in membership. The income from our corporate partners stabilised this year on a level of €279K.
We are very happy that the interest rates on savings increased, so we have a positive interest income of €30K.
Expenses
Personnel and service costs
High inflation in the Netherlands, caused higher costs for running the central office due to indexation of staff salaries, raising personnel costs to €589K, and increased costs for services. Thanks to an excellent cost management of our executive director and her staff all other costs did not exceed the budget.
The contributions to the WP’s increased by almost €10K to €35K and we also invested €37K in the I TRY IT program. An important project is the development of the Blood Group Allele database.
The Red Cell Immunogenetics and Blood Group Terminology Working Party has been working for many years to make the current allele tables more accessible in a digital form. We are developing a web-based interface which we expect will be operational in 2024. This will be an important step forward for the ISBT community, researchers and doctors and also for the industry that is making kits for red cell genotyping. In the future we are seeking financial contribution from the industry, analogous to the HLA database.
In line with our revised agreement with the Dutch tax authorities, we are able to deduct our current year loss against the tax owed on a portion of our reserves. As of 31 March 2024, our remaining tax liability is down to €6k.
