Ms Patricia Quinn:

It started out without government funding but with funding from major philanthropies. Tens of millions of dollars were invested in GuideStar by a consortium of major philanthropies in the U.S. I understand from the former chief executive of GuideStar, who is now a member of our board, that it took eight years of trading before GuideStar started to break even. The level of investment by philanthropies was such as to establish the technologies and the foundations for the organisation. Gradually GuideStar started to sell data to the public, to smaller foundations, to government agencies and to philanthropists. This is how it functions now.