Funding

Well have just found out that we have enough funding for the next 12 months from April so that our charity will continue to exist. YEAH!!! We haven't got funding for all of our projects, but most of them. Funding is just getting harder and harder to get as many avenues of funding are closed of. For example, we used to get quite a bit of European funding but the UK gets hardly any funding now and very little that the voluntary sector can apply for. Although we get Lottery funding, thsi is also getting harder to get as there is less money around but the same or more organisations applying for it.

Just met with our Chairperson today about our funding for next year. At the moment we have lots of funding applications submitted to lots of funders, but as yet very little funding secured for next year. We met to look at whether we thought we could exist next year and we reckon even if we don't get any other funding in we could exist for another 6 months. After that we would fold. We would still have to next year make lots of our staff redundant, but that 6 months would give us a bit of breathing space at least.

It always amazes me when we talk to people at the council about how precarious our funding is and they are surprised. We operate so much on a hand to mouth basis from year to year that we are always vulnerable to folding. I envy charities that get a regular grant from the city council or are popular in the public's mind and get large donatiosn or bequests.

It is particularly galling that whether a charity gets government funding or not is as much to do with politics and who you know as how good a service you actually provide. Anyway I guess I shouldn't be too negative.

Funding

I spend a lot of my time looking for funding. To keep our current work going I need to bring in around £360,000 a year - no small feat. There are basically 5 sources of funding.

First there is fundraising like sponsored walks, donations, etc. Charities like ours bring in very little of our money this way. When people make larger donations such as a legacy, it tends to be to larger high profile national charities like cancer charities, or charities that pull on your heartstrings such as the local hospice or project for disabled children.

The second source is the Government. We get very little from our local Council. Their budgets for grants to charities have been drastically cut over the years, so our local council generally only funds charities it has funded for years. Newer charities like ours can sometimes get small grants for particular projects, but not sunstantial grants to pay for staff salaries. We do get significant grants from Central Government. This is because we work in a disadvantaged area with lots of problems.

The third source is the Lottery. Here too we have been successful in getting grants. Fourthly there is funding frohe European Union that charities can apply for. We have some funding coming in this way. However, that source of funding is drying up. The kind of money we get goes to the most disadvantaged places in Europe. With the new countries joining taht are poor like Poland, lots of areas in Britain will no longer be eligible for this funding.

Fifthly we get grants from trusts. These are bodies set up be companies, families or private individuals to give grants to charities or individuals. They range from the local bank giving money for toys for a children's group to rich families giving millions to repair or conserve historic buildings.

However none of these places just give you money. You have to complete application forms and sometimes provide lots of extra information like policies and business plans. Most also insist that you achieve outputs for your funding. This might include the number of people who use your services, the hours you are open and measures of quality.