Why it is vital charities survive the current economic climate

The last blog I wrote was about how we fund the work we do.  This has become even more difficult since that last blog.  We have been fortunate to gain some funding from Children In Need which gives us a grant for three years to cover the salary of one of our youth team.  
However, this is just the tip of the iceberg.  I wrote a list the other day of the core activities we need to fund and top of the list was salaries.  We have a very small team of people here, 2 full time, 4 part time and 3 sessional workers.  Unlike the private sector we don't get bonuses when the company is doing well....instead we plough any profit back into the charity and try to build some reserves so we can weather future financial storms.  

We don't manufacture a product to sell for a profit or deliver a service that people can purchase...We provide a place where people can meet, a community hub, we provide staff to manage the building day to day as well as working strategically to develop, sustain and build the charity and meet our charitable objectives.  We have to raise money to cover the costs of all this, although people sometimes pay to access some of our activities, that money pays for the tutor and nothing else.  We still have to find the money to pay salaries, utility bills and maintenance of the building.  We have some rooms that we let out to other organisations and local individuals at low cost which brings in some income, we are also fortunate to have a good relationship with a local Warwick Charitable trust who give us a grant, but finding the rest of the money continues to be difficult.  We cannot charge people or charge more for services and activities or room hire and so we continue to apply to other grant making organisations and try to find innovative ways to raise money.  Recently we have started our Buy a Brick scheme, where people pay a small amount of money to have their name on one of the bricks on our wall, we run ladies pamper evenings and quiz nights and have also started selling second hand books to people using the centre.

Each year we set our budget based on what we know will be coming in, we have pared the budget right down and spend a lot of time working on reducing costs, buying carefully and comparing prices.  We are not alone...many voluntary organisations are doing the same, trying to keep their heads above water because we know our services are becoming increasingly more and more important as statutory services are cut.

Raising the money to keep going is getting harder and harder, and the numbers of people coming to us for help and support is increasing day by day as local government cuts more and more services. I keep hoping that things will change and that someone will eventually realise that as a society we need to invest in society in order to ensure the continued health and well being of people in our communities.......but until that day it is vital that organisations in the voluntary sector are able to keep going and picking up the pieces..........so, if you are able to support your local charity then do, support doesn't have to always be monetary either, do you have some skills that might be useful? are you good at organising events? do you have contacts in local firms you could approach to help? The list is endless...why not have a think and see how you could help your community.

Funding for Voluntary Sector Organisations

Funding for voluntary sector organisations has always been difficult to come by, especially for organisations such as ours that undertake work in their local communities but do not have a focus that pulls at the general public’s heart strings such as sick animals or children.  Not that I am knocking such charities, they do amazing work for these groups but it is much more difficult to raise funds to keep work going when you work with a whole community and in an area that is not seen as ‘deprived’. 

The main focus of our work is on Warwick North, but we people use the centre from Leamington, Kenilworth and the more rural areas of Warwick District.  We provide a range of activities that aim to keep our community healthy both in mind and body and to give them access to information, advice and support services that they may need.  We have good relationships with a lot of our community members and provide a listening ear and support to those who need it.  However, this work is not always easy to fund.  There are some local grant making trusts that see the value in what we do and will fund us, but we still have to raise a lot of money each year to keep going.  We have to pay the rent on the building, the gas, electricity and water as well as wages for the staff, without who the centre would be just like any other community hall, renting out rooms and employing a part-time caretaker.

Traditionally funding for the voluntary sector has come from writing bids to various local and national grant making bodies such as Lloyds TSB, the National Lottery and Children In Need.  However, in the current economic climate, more and more charities are applying to these and the pots of funding available are reducing. 

Because of this, organisations in the voluntary sector are having to become much more creative and look at diversifying their income streams as much as possible.  We have worked on developing our income generation strategy over the last few years and now undertake a range of activities to help keep ourselves funded and sustainable.  As well as applying for funding, we rent out rooms in the centre, we organise fund raising events such as ladies pamper evenings and quiz nights, we provide placements and a Practice Assessor for social work students from the local universities (for which we get paid), we have tendered for a couple of contracts and we have developed our own social enterprise company - The Gap Creative, through which we provide bespoke youth arts sessions to other organisations for a fee.

However, the biggest change in funding locally that has affected us is the change by Warwick District Council from grant funding (through which we got a small annual grant) to a tendering process for the Voluntary and Community Sector as providers of key services for local communities.  This is a new venture for us, we have written a couple of tender bids in the past but they were very small ones.  I have spent the last couple of months developing a new project that will hopefully meet the tender specification and allow us to expand into another area of Warwick.  The bid has taken me quite some time to write but is now complete and ready to be sent off before the deadline on 31 October.  It will be a bit strange to have more time for other things once it is sent, it has taken over my life somewhat and I just hope all the hard work will have been worth it and we get the contract.  I am quite excited about the new project and I think it will ultimately be very beneficial for Warwick.  In the meantime I have to go back to looking for funding sources and writing bids!

So what is the Gap and what do we do?

Well, this is my first blog as the Gap and I thought I'd take the opportunity to tell you a bit more about who we are and what we do.


We are a community centre based on the Percy estate in Warwick that was initially set up to try and provide some activities for young people on the estate who were getting into trouble and causing real problems for older people, especially in the evenings.  After a while, older people from the estate started wanting services for themselves as well which we work hard to continue to  provide.  We then raised funding to take over the old St John's Church hall in Oakwood Grove, renovated and extended it into a building that could become a focal point for the community.              


We now run a thriving community centre which provides a wide range of services and activities for the local community.  We take an holistic approach to working with people and are user led.  Activities and services provided aim to meet the needs of the community, whether that is for physical exercise, advice on various issues, help getting back into work, volunteering opportunities, support, socialising (thus reducing social isolation and maintaining better levels of mental health) etc.


We are a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee and are independent.  A lot of people think we are run by Warwickshire County Council but we are totally independent.  We raise all the funding needed to keep ourselves running through a variety of means (I think how we do that is another blog in itself!). We are run by a board of 7 trustees who employ a small team of staff to run the centre.


The staff team is made up as follows:

• Vicki Jones - Director
• Marcos Campos - Youth and Families Development Manager
• Kate Dutton - Centre Co-ordinator
• Rich Parsons - Youth and Families Team Leader
• Scott  - Youth worker
• Jo  - Youth Worker
• Tina - evening caretaker
• We currently have a vacancy for a part-time caretaker as well

Most of our staff are part-time and we also have a team of over 30 volunteers. Our volunteers are a crucial part of our success, they help us deliver a wide range of services to the community and without them, many of the activities and services we provide would not be possible.

Regular activities we provide include 3 youth sessions a week for young people 8-18, Stay and Play sessions for parents and toddlers, art club for older people, various exercise classes, a lunch club for older people, Tai Chi, Zumba, Baby clinics and police and local councillor surgeries. There is much more on offer and that will be the subject of another blog I think!


If you want to know more before I manage to write another one then please visit our website www.thegapwarwick.org or pop in and see us at 39 Oakwood Grove, Warwick.