Because the only figure we can stand behind is the one the books were closed on, and a number on a page drifts away from that within weeks.
Every few months somebody suggests we put a progress bar on the campaigns page. They are being helpful and it would probably raise more money. We are not going to, and it is worth writing down why once rather than explaining it one message at a time.
A number on a web page has to be updated by somebody. In an organisation of four people and a committee, that somebody is busy, and the number is right on the day it is typed and slowly wrong afterwards. Within two months it is a figure that flatters us, and it is sitting on a page that is asking people for money. That is the part that settles it: an out of date number on a page asking for money is not an administrative slip, it is a claim.
So here is what we do instead. Every figure on this site is a target and a state with the date it was last confirmed beside it. Seven of twelve schools, agreed at a committee meeting on a date you can read. Nothing on this site counts itself.
For money, the treasurer closes the books monthly. Ask the office, or book half an hour with him, and you will get the last closed figure and the date it was closed on. He will not give you a live total because there is no such thing in a set of books, and anybody who hands you one out of a spreadsheet is handing you an estimate with a decimal point on it.
Two more things we will not print. We do not say that all of a donation reaches an island, because freight, fuel, the store rent and bank charges come out of it, and the treasurer will tell you roughly what that share has been for a given campaign. And we do not describe any figure here as audited, because none of it is. If that changes we will say so and name who did it.
Once a year the closed accounts are read out at the dinner, in front of a hundred and twenty people, and then anybody in the room can ask anything. That evening does more for the foundation's honesty than a progress bar ever would, and it is considerably harder to sit through.