Sound Funding advice for local Charities
Voluntary and community groups throughout the county were given sound funding advice from the founder trustee of the Four Acre Trust at the recent Charities Funding Breakfast. John Bothamley urged that charities need to be professional and businesslike in their approach to attract the funding that they need. The Four Acre Trust was keen to establish long term relationships with groups but all too often this desire was frustrated when recipients failed to even acknowledge the receipt of the grant!
The Herefordshire based Four Acre Trust distributes £2.5million pa to registered charities working to help people, mostly young, to make the most of their lives. To help with the process, 20 Field Officers – all working pro bono, have been engaged and they work alongside the applicant charity to ensure that applications are relevant to Four Acre criteria and fulfil all the requirements.
John emphasised that he well understood that charities are facing tremendous challenges in sustaining activity over the long term; short term funding was unhelpful with projects sometimes awash with cash initially only to find themselves incapable of sustaining valuable services that people had come to depend upon. Four Acre wants to work with charities to avoid this dilemma.
The Breakfast also discussed some concerns about funding Lottery funding programmes and the potential impact that London 2012 will have on grant giving for good causes. Some distributors are already seeing their funding allocations cut from now until 2012. The impact of this is clearly a topic for future debate.
The next Funding Breakfast takes place on Tuesday 2nd October, 7.30a.m – 9.00am when the speaker will be Nick Millington, Rural Media Company who will talk about successful media tools and fundraising. It is also an ideal opportunity to network with other voluntary and community groups and discover the range of support that is available.
WORKSHOP DETAILS
Title: Charities Funding Breakfast
Date and Time: 2nd October 2007 7.30 am – 9.00 am
Place: Saxty’s, Widemarsh Street Hereford
To book: Call Clare O’Grady on 01432 343 932 outreach@herefordshireva.org
£6 will be payable on the day for a full continental buffet
< Return to news list
