The evidence behind the work

In 2023, Innovative and Equal recorded total income of $612,400 (AMD 244,960,000 at the year's average exchange rate of approximately 400 AMD/USD), against total expenditure of $589,100 (AMD 235,640,000), leaving a modest operating surplus of $23,300 carried forward as an unrestricted reserve. Income by source broke down as follows: institutional grants from international foundations and bilateral donors accounted for $367,000 (60%); individual donations from within Armenia contributed $42,900 (7%); diaspora giving — overwhelmingly from Armenian communities in the United States, France and Russia — reached $158,700 (26%); and earned income from our social-enterprise weaving cooperative and training-fee contracts totalled $43,800 (7%).

On the expenditure side, 84.2% of spending — $496,000 — went directly to programme delivery: digital-literacy centres, the girls'-education scholarship fund, rural microenterprise grants and our disability-inclusion initiative. Administrative costs (office, compliance, core staff not assigned to programmes) were $58,900 (10.0%), and fundraising and donor-relations costs were $34,200 (5.8%). This programme ratio of 84.2% exceeded our internal target of 82% and compares favourably to the sector median in Armenia's registered NGO sector.

Our accounts were independently audited by Yerevan-based audit firm Metsamor Audit & Assurance CJSC, a licensed statutory auditor registered with the Chamber of Auditors of Armenia. The auditor issued an unqualified ('clean') opinion, stating that 'the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of Innovative and Equal NGO as of 31 December 2023, and its financial performance for the year then ended, in accordance with Armenian accounting standards for non-commercial organisations.' The audit included substantive testing of a sample of 47 individual transactions across restricted grant lines, with no material exceptions noted.

Programmatically, 2023 was our strongest year on record for reach: 3,140 individuals completed at least one digital-literacy module (up from 2,260 in 2022), 96 rural households received microenterprise start-up grants averaging $410 each, and our girls'-education scholarship fund supported 214 secondary-school students across Shirak, Lori, Tavush and Syunik provinces, of whom 201 completed the academic year, a 93.9% retention rate. Our disability-inclusion pilot, launched in March 2023 in Gyumri and Vanadzor, enrolled 58 adults with physical and sensory disabilities in vocational and assistive-technology training, with 39 subsequently securing paid or self-employed work within six months of graduation.

The year was not without setbacks. A planned expansion of our digital centres into Armavir province was delayed by seven months due to a landlord dispute over a proposed training-centre lease in Armavir town, forcing us to redirect that quarter's cohort to a temporary space in a school gymnasium with weaker internet infrastructure — a decision that measurably slowed module-completion times for that cohort by an average of 11 days. We have since signed a five-year lease on a permanent Armavir facility, opening in Q2 2024. We also recorded a higher-than-expected currency-conversion loss of $6,100 on a euro-denominated grant, prompting a policy change: as of January 2024 all multi-year grants over €20,000 are hedged through forward contracts with our banking partner.

2022 total income reached $541,000 (AMD 216,400,000 at an average rate of 400 AMD/USD), against expenditure of $528,600 (AMD 211,440,000), yielding a small surplus of $12,400. Income by source: institutional grants $312,000 (57.7%); individual domestic donations $38,500 (7.1%); diaspora giving $161,200 (29.8%, unusually high this year owing to a one-off matched-giving campaign following the aftermath of renewed border tensions); and earned income $29,300 (5.4%).

Programme spending was $436,400 (82.6%), administration $57,900 (11.0%), and fundraising $34,300 (6.4%) — our tightest year on the 82% programme-ratio threshold. Independent audit was again performed by Metsamor Audit & Assurance CJSC, which issued an unqualified opinion, noting explicitly that 'no instances of restricted-fund misapplication were identified in the sample tested,' covering 39 transactions.

Key outcomes: 2,260 people completed digital-literacy training; 74 microenterprise grants disbursed at an average of $395; 189 girls supported through the scholarship fund with a 91% completion rate; and our first cohort of 27 participants in a newly launched legal-literacy programme for rural women in Tavush and Syunik, covering property rights, inheritance law and domestic-violence protections.

This was also the year we absorbed the sharpest cost shock in our history: inflation in construction and IT-equipment prices (driven by regional supply-chain disruption) pushed our per-participant digital-centre equipment cost up by 34% compared to 2021, forcing us to defer a planned fourth Tavush centre to 2023. Lesson learned: we now hold a 6% contingency line in every capital-equipment budget line, a policy adopted from Q1 2023 onward.

In 2021, still contending with pandemic-era disruption, total income was $478,900 (AMD 191,560,000), against expenditure of $469,700 (AMD 187,880,000), a surplus of $9,200. Income sources: institutional grants $296,900 (62.0%); individual domestic donations $31,100 (6.5%); diaspora giving $121,300 (25.3%); earned income $29,600 (6.2%).

Programme expenditure was $393,400 (83.7%), administration $52,600 (11.2%), fundraising $23,700 (5.1%). The audit, our first engagement with Metsamor Audit & Assurance CJSC after a competitive re-tender of our audit contract, resulted in an unqualified opinion with one emphasis-of-matter paragraph drawing attention to pandemic-related uncertainty in projecting 2022 grant renewals — standard practice in that period and not indicative of any irregularity.

2021 outcomes included 1,640 digital-literacy completions (many delivered in blended online/offline format due to continuing COVID-19 restrictions), 58 microenterprise grants, and 162 scholarship recipients. It was also the year we piloted remote learning kits — solar-charged tablets pre-loaded with offline curricula — for 40 households in Tavush villages without reliable electricity, a response to the acute access gap the pandemic exposed.

Challenges: three planned in-person training cohorts were cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19 movement restrictions in the first half of the year, and one partner organisation in Syunik temporarily withdrew from a joint programme over capacity constraints, delaying a planned 220-participant vocational cohort to early 2022. We learned to build 15% schedule slack into every quarterly programme plan going forward, a practice retained since.