Frequently asked questions

Our mission is to help transform the lives of people living in extreme poverty. Our large scale improvements are designed to be long lasting and remain in place without our ongoing support.

We engage in emergency response, long term development work, strive to build resilience, while also investigating and addressing poverty’s root causes through our development education and advocacy work.

We reach 25 million vulnerable people each year in some of the world’s hardest to reach and fragile places, such as countries prone to conflict, natural disasters, climate change and extreme hunger. When an emergency strikes, we are among the first on the ground. We won’t stop until extreme poverty does.

We stand up for the voices of poverty and use our platform to bring their stories to world leaders and change-makers.

In 1968, John and Kay O’Loughlin-Kennedy founded Concern at their home in Dublin, Ireland. They established Concern Africa in response to the developing famine in the breakaway province of Biafra in Nigeria, with John as honorary secretary and Kay as a volunteer company secretary.

Concern was formally founded in March 1968 at the Dublin home of Kay and John O’Loughlin-Kennedy.

In 1967, Father Raymond Kennedy, John’s brother, returned from Nigeria to IReland with news about the ongoing crisis in Biafra. To raise awareness and funds, John, Kay and Raymond help a conference in the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin which allowed them to send the first of Concern’s ‘mercy flights'. A short time later, Africa Concern was officially founded. The extraordinarily generous response from the Irish public continued and within the first year, £3.5 million had been raised for Biafra, equivalent to €64 million today.

Read more about our history here

Yes, Concern Worldwide is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries.

Yes! in 2021 alone, Concern helped 39 million of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people to alleviate poverty and hunger. We responded to 66 different emergencies in 23 countries. We spent over €196 million implementing a huge diversity of overseas programmes, designed to address specific causes of extreme poverty in communities.

In 2020, we were honoured to be awarded ‘Charity of the year’ at the 2020 Charity Excellence Awards. You can read more here

Concern Worldwide’s headquarters are located at

52-55 Camden Street Lower,

Saint Kevin's,

Dublin,

D02 H425,

Ireland.

Click here for more information on where we work.

Our core values are integrity, transparency and accountability and we operate to the highest standards of each. We’re committed to using your donations to transform the lives of some of the poorest people in the world. We let our actions and initiatives speak for themselves. We are committed to responding to emergencies, fighting poverty and hunger and sustaining long-term development in the countries we support.

We have also been formally recognised for our accounting and annual reporting practising on numerous occasions. In November 2018, we received the award for large not-for-profit at the 41st Published Accounts Awards. This was the 22nd time in the last 30 years that we won at the Published Accounts Awards, which is organised by the Chartered Accountants Leinster Society.

Click here for more information on our annual report.

In 2021, our CEO, Dominic MacSorley, was paid a salary of €113,493 and received a 9% contribution to a defined contribution pension scheme, for his role of managing Concern’s operations and 3,300 staff worldwide. He received no additional benefits in the current or prior year.

The salary is decided by the Board of Concern based on the skills and responsibility required for the role. A full breakdown of our financial spending can be read on our annual report section. Public trust and confidence is so important to us. That’s why we work hard to ensure we are transparent in our governance and management.

Maintaining our high standards in accountability and transparency is very important to us. Our annual reports for years gone by are all available online.

Click here to find out more about how money is spent.

Concern is made up of a diverse workforce both nationally and internationally reflecting various levels of responsibilities, expertise and duties.

Explore our current vacancies here.

Accountability and transparency are central to our values as an organisation. In fact, they are part of our core values. We’re committed to using your donations to transform the lives of some of the poorest people in the world.

Breakdown of fundraising and donations:

• 90.3% Relief and Development
• 7.1% Fundraising
• 2.1% Development education and advocacy
• 0.5% Governance

In 2021, we reached approximately 39 million people in 24 of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries. We spent over €217 million on our overseas programmes.

How relief and development money was spent in 2021:

• Emergencies – €121 million
• Integrated – €32 million
• Health – €9 million
• Livelihoods – €17 million
• Education – €17 million

Click here to learn more about how money is spent.

The work of volunteers is central to everything we do and allows us to continue our life-saving work in the world’s poorest countries. There are many ways you can volunteer at Concern and your support is invaluable to us.

You can find out more here: https://www.concern.net/volunteer