Funding news
Dementia Carers Support in Runnymede
This Dementia Action Week we’re celebrating the remarkable fundraising efforts of Frances Dyble-Goode, who runs the Dementia Carers Support group in Runnymede. Frances estimates that in the past 8 years DCS have raised £150,000 which has enabled the 3 groups to operate every week and fund all their extra activities and outings. To date there have been Christmas Parties, Cream Teas, Cinema trips, River Boat trips, Ole Time Music Hall, Kew Gardens, Saturday lunch clubs, Art Club, manicures, weekends away and a garden party once a year squeezed into Frances’ garden!
Here in Frances’ own words are her reasons for starting the group:
‘I decided what I missed more than anything with this terrible illness was a social life with my husband John who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 53. You cannot take your loved one to public places because of the nature of the illness, so I decided to start up a small evening 'Supper Club' for carers to bring along their loved ones and have a lovely evening together. This quickly grew to a very large group of people and since there was nowhere for them to be able to go together in the daytime, I again decided to find a venue that we could start up a 'Drop in Club' for them and the Dementia Carers Support Club was born.’
The first club was held in 2010, once a week at the Village Centre in Englefield Green, funded by Cllr. Marisa Heath. The group become a charity in April 2012 and a BBC2 television appearance led to £20,000 in public donations which enabled Frances to set up 2 more support groups in Woodham Day Centre, New Haw. The original Tuesday Club has been relocated to St. Paul’s Church Annex in Egham Hythe.
Frances has taken ‘Action for Dementia’ to a whole new level and was rightly awarded the ‘Unsung Hero Award’ on Friday 18/5/18. Well done Frances, we’re enormously proud of you and we’ll let you have the last word!
‘We have now about 70 people, Carers their loved ones, also Past Carers, as this is very important, after taking care of a loved one for over 5 to 10 years, they are left totally alone, so they keep coming to us, we are their extended family.’
For more information about Dementia Carers Support please visit their website
PayPal Giving Fund
Paypal and eBay are now offering registered charities (of all sizes) a great way to raise additional funding via a service called the PayPal Giving Fund.
Once you have created a PayPal account for your charity you can then enrol to the Giving Fund for free and your charity will appear on the PayPal website and app, allowing the public to make direct donations. Enrolling to the fund also displays your organisation on eBay for Charity and your supporters can then sell items and donate all or part of the proceeds to your charity. Your charity will also be part of Go Fund Me, where supporters can run individual fundraising campaigns on your behalf.
They also offer additional tools such as a donate button for your website to allow you to accept direct donations without having to use a 3rd party online donation site. They can also provide PayPal Here card readers which would let you accept chip and pin or contactless donations in person at fundraising events.
Enrolling for the fund is straightforward;
1. Create a business account for your charity with PayPal and follow the instructions on how to enrol for the PayPal Giving Fund.
2. Encourage your supporters to donate to you on PayPal, eBay and other online platforms by putting a donate button on your website
PayPal processes the website donation and provides a receipt to your donor and transfers the funds to your charity without charging any fees
Read the PDF guide on how to enrol
Congratulations to Camberley Man with a Pan Project
Congratulations to Man with a Pan project who have been awarded £47,310 to continue and extend their hugely popular and life-changing courses at St Mary's Church in Camberley.
The courses have been run at St Mary's since September 2017 and are designed for older men taking on the cooking role in their homes. They may be isolated and lonely from looking after a partner for many years. The need for these classes was brought to the attention of the Camberley Alzheimer Cafe who had the capabilities and opportunity to address the issue.
The classes allow for 6 men on each 5 week course, meeting once a week with a reunion for all at a later date. They learn to prepare delicious, stress-free, affordable and healthy meals by chef Robin van Creveld who had experience in working with mothers and reduced income at St Mary's.
New courses at St. Mary’s, Park Rd., Camberley GU15 1RN are planned for:
Fridays 8th June – 6th July Man with a Pan
and Tuesdays 3rd July – 31st July Healthy Heart Cooking
For more details please telephone: 01276 675 266
Charity Walk for Peace
The Voluntary Support North Surrey team (and 2 furry four legged friends) turned out on Sunday to support the annual Charity Walk for Peace in the grounds of Windsor Great Park. It was a chilly day but we were excited to join with over 4500 participants representing 160 local charities with a joint fundraising target of £1 million.
We'd like to thank the organisers, who did an amazing job. We enjoyed our walk around the park and especially enjoyed the wonderful curry prepared and served by the members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community UK which warmed us up beautifully.
It was a fabulous fundraising effort by all the participants - well done to everyone who took part.
Dos and Don’ts from the Heathrow Community Fund
On Wednesday we were very pleased to host Fiona Brewer from the Heathrow Community Fund who are an independent charity and local funder. This was a great opportunity for our groups to hear the other side of application writing: what funders look for in applications, common mistakes and what CFH expect from the organisations when an award is made.
The funding they distribute comes from Heathrow Airport Limited, noise fines levied on airlines when they break the noise regulations, other funders and funding from Heathrow staff via their fundraising activities. Their grant programme supports projects for communities near the airport, so for us that means Runnymede and Spelthorne. They also support airport staff volunteering and fundraising to improve their community or cause.
Fiona talked to us about the grants process from application to awards and the 3 different funding streams open to an application: Communities for Youth, Communities for Tomorrow, Communities Together.
She then strongly emphasised the responsibilities of groups awarded funding to follow their agreed project plan and report the project adequately. As an aspect of fundraising that is often overlooked in the excitement of getting funds and running a project it was important to hear what funders think.
They are a local grant maker with over £800,000 to fund a range of projects in 2018. Their application forms are straightforward, online and help to complete them is available.
It begs the question – what are you waiting for? Read the about the funds, their criteria and the closing dates here.
As always we are available to help you with training, proofreading and due to high demand for places, Fiona will be back again in late summer so watch out for dates.
Why you should engage with Millennials
Donations to charity in 2017 rose from £9.7 billion to £10.3 billion and although older people continue to give the most, there has been a surge in the amount given by young millennials. For the first time, 16-24 year olds gave even more that those aged 25-34.
The day to day lives of millennials are governed by digital and social media which means voluntary organisations must ensure they have a way to accept digital donations. Websites, social media and apps account for £2.4 billion in donations in the UK annually. Donations made via websites, social media and apps account for 26% of donations in the UK. More than half (55%) of surveyed not-for-profits reported increased online giving within the past 12 months.
As well as making donations social media can be used to engage with supporters and attract new ones. Three quarters of millennials would like a two-way conversation with the charities they support, and social media campaigns allow interaction in a way that traditional advertising is unable to do.
In an increasingly cashless era, The Church of England is making contactless, virtual terminal, and SMS mobile payments available throughout England, in a bid to make transactions faster and easier for the Church’s congregations. Over 16,000 churches, cathedrals, and religious sites will now have access to portable card readers which will take contactless payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay, as well as chip & PIN capable.
No matter how hard the funding choices facing charities are at the moment, it’s worth considering investing in the right digital tools and expertise and creating or reviewing your digital strategy to take advantage of this new generation of donors.