Lots of people are interested to learn more about nonprofits working in the area of suicide prevention or support.

The Benefacts Database of Irish Nonprofits lists 48 nonprofits in Ireland whose main purpose is concerned with some aspect of suicide: prevention, counselling, research, public education or information. You can see the list here, and you can download their financial accounts and constitutions.

The public Register of Charities lists just 13 charities with “suicide” in their name, but there are 235 where the word is included among their charitable activities or beneficiaries. However, these include animal rescue charities, citizens and money advice centres, drugs task forces, faith bodies, family and youth centres, mountain and marine rescue bodies, volunteering centres and others whose primary purpose is not related to suicide prevention.

31 of the organisations listed on Benefacts are registered charities. Go to benefacts.ie to learn more about their purposes, their regulation, governance and financial profile, and to access their constitutional and financial reports.

What do we know?

Benefacts has aggregated the data that these 48 nonprofits have filed with various regulators or registers, and can provide some analysis:

1) Governance and operations

Of the 30 nonprofits for which detailed governance data is available, they report that:

• they employed 153 full-time equivalent people in aggregate during 2014
• two (Sosad, Suicide or Survive) comply with the Governance Code, and two (3Ts and Suicide or Survive) with the Statement of Guiding Principles for Fundraising.

2) Location

Almost 50% of all suicide nonprofits are based in Dublin (20%), Cork (16%) or Kerry (10%). Here’s a graph showing the geographic distribution, or filter search results by location on benefacts.ie to learn more.

3) Financial profile

Benefacts has detailed financial data for 29 of the 48 nonprofits – that’s because as companies they file statutory accounts with the Companies Registration Office (CRO).

Of these 29 organisations, Pieta House is the largest by turnover in this group with a reported total income in 2014 of €5.4 million.

• 2 prepare their accounts using the Charities SORP reporting standard (Pieta House and Samaritans Ireland)
• 6 reported total income in 2014 of €500,000 or more:

• Pieta House C.P.S.O.S. Limited
• Console Suicide Bereavement Counselling Limited
• Suicide Research Foundation
• Samaritans Ireland
• Fight Against Suicide Limited
• Reach Out Ireland Limited

• 8 organisations reported receiving government funding in 2014:

• Console Suicide Bereavement Counselling Limited
• Pieta House C.P.S.O.S. Limited
• Reach Out Ireland Limited
• Irish Association of Suicidology
• Kinsale Youth Support Services Limited
• Sosad Ireland Limited
• Galway East Life Support Limited
• It’s Good To Talk Counselling Psychotherapy Support Services Limited

The profile of their reported government funding in 2014 is provided in the table below. Data for 2015 will be available from Benefacts later this year.