Fundraising news, views, client stories and more

Suffolk Family Carers

Posted on 06 November 2015

Charity Fundraising Ltd were commissioned by Suffolk Family Carers to evaluate the achievements, outputs and outcomes of the Big Lottery Fund Reaching Communities funded BOOST 4 Young Carers Project, towards the end of year two of a three year project. The aim of the BOOST 4 Young Carers Project is to offer age-appropriate support groups, information and respite activities to Suffolk’s most vulnerable Young Carers, especially from remote rural areas and ethnic minority communities; meeting their identified learning, life skills, emotional and social needs, helping them make an effective transition to functioning younger adulthood.

Charity consultants used a variety of means to evaluate the project including:

  • Analysis of activity evaluations
  • Analysis of self-reporting data
  • Questionnaires with parents
  • Questionnaires with young carers
  • Interviews with project staff
  • Interviews with partner organisations
  • Facilitating focus groups with young carers and young adult carers

Following the information gathering, we produced an evaluation report detailing how outcomes had been met and suggestions of areas to address in year three of the project.

“A friendly and inclusive approach. Kathryn took time to understand our organisation and worked pro-actively with us to produce a positive report. It was good to see a ‘hands on’ approach to gathering information to inform the evaluation. Kathryn did an excellent job and was good to work with.” –Julie Thurston, Young Peoples Services Manager

Slough YMCA

Posted on 14 May 2015

Slough YMCA provides supported accommodation for homeless young people between the ages of 18 and 30 with the aim of helping them through their toughest times, which will hopefully lead them to independent living.  Through their community hub project, The Hangout, Slough YMCA try to foster a greater sense of community cohesion by bringing members of the local community together in one venue regardless of their race, colour, sex or background.

The YMCA is also the largest voluntary provider of community based sports, fitness and physical activity programmes, which form part of an all-round approach to healthy living and personal and social development that is unique to the YMCA.

Fundraising consulting firm Charity Fundraising Ltd, wrote a successful funding application to the Big Lottery Reaching Communities initiative, resulting in a grant of £248,289. We have also achieved £60,000 from BBC Children in Need and worked on a range of other funding bids. To date, the total raised for Slough YMCA is £379,789.

“Slough YMCA are happy to recommend Charity Fundraising Ltd. We hope to work closely with them in the coming years to look for further funding and assistance with tendering.” Colin Young, Chief Executive

Leeds Jewish Welfare Board

Posted on 05 December 2014

Leeds Jewish Welfare Board has been providing community services to the people of Leeds since 1878.  A thriving community anchor, the organisation provides a range of educational, wellbeing and care services for people of all ages with mental health problems and learning disabilities, alongside dedicate support for older people.

We first started working with Leeds Jewish Welfare Board in 2012, when they came to us looking for help to diversify their income. At that point, they were dependent upon statutory funding and community donations and recognised the risk this placed upon their sustainability.

We worked with Leeds Jewish Welfare Board to develop a fundraising strategy, evaluate their impact and create highly presentable cases for support and funding applications to a range of local, regional and national funders.

In total, we helped Leeds Jewish Welfare Board to secure £137,204 in grant funding and provided the tools and capacity to go on and strengthen their own fundraising campaigns.

Our team provided the following support:

  • Research, consultation and analysis of beneficiary needs
  • Development of a fundraising strategy
  • Grant prospect research
  • Grant Bid Writing
  • Monitoring and evaluation design and mentoring
  • Monitoring and evaluation reports

Leeds Jewish Welfare Board has continued to increase its income year and year and provide a much needed resource to local people in Leeds.

“Charity Fundraising Ltd, has been conducting grant application work for Leeds Jewish Welfare Board since August 2012. Whilst doing so they undertook an evaluation of our mental health project (Neshama) between March and June 2013. The evaluation report was compiled in a highly professional manner and has contributed to our funding applications.

Working with Charity Fundraising was a pleasure and has made us understand the enormous impact a good evaluation can have on an organisation.” Meirav Sassoon, Fundraising Manager

Crossroads Care Cumbria

Posted on 03 January 2014

Crossroads Care Cumbria initially enlisted the services of fundraising firm Charity Fundraising Ltd to conduct funder prospect research, diversify the organisation’s funding sources, provide strategic advice and develop a fundraising strategy as well as delivering extensive bid writing.

Several members of the team at Charity Fundraising Ltd worked with Crossroads Care Cumbria, with each individual consultant applying their specialist skills and expertise to ensure that we offer the best possible return on investment.

In total Charity Fundraising Ltd raised £1,323,624 in grant and contract funding through a number of grant sources, including: BIG Lottery Fund (Awards for All and Reaching Communities) and the Northern Rock Foundation. We also worked closely with the client to secure multi-year contract funding for ‘Call-Off’ services. The final tender submission to Cumbria County Council was successful and had an estimated total value of £900,000.

Charity Fundraising Ltd also provided additional consultancy support. This included consultation exercises with older carers, an evaluation of their services and a feasibility study into the development of a new young carers service. The work involved leading consultation with key stakeholders, competitor analysis, identification of income streams and development of a new service and user forum.

Age UK Norwich Lottery Funding

Age UK Norwich

Posted on 07 September 2013

Age UK Norwich is a longstanding client, having started working with Charity Fundraising Ltd in early 2011. They continue to be a valued client receiving grant fundraising support, strategic consultancy and evaluation services.

To date, Charity Fundraising Ltd has raised £985,392 for Age UK Norwich with a return of over 12 times their investment with us. Successes include grants from the Big Lottery Fund, Comic Relief and the Charles Hayward Foundation, which have funded vital support work such as befriending, advice and outreach services for older people (including those with dementia and their carers).

As well as outsourced fundraising, the services we have offered to Age UK Norwich include strategy development, bid review and mentoring and boosting the charity’s internal monitoring, evaluation and community consultation efforts. These measures provide highly valuable evidence of Age UK Norwich’s impact as well as highlighting key areas for improvement and best practice working for disseminating to other Age UKs.

cbm Ireland

Posted on 30 July 2013

cbm Ireland is a branch of a major international development charity, working in over 100 countries across the world. They initially contracted our services to produce four major bids for The Civil Society Fund of Irish Aid. Working directly with the Central Africa Regional Office and liaising with the Irish office, we produced all of the bids to a tight timescale. Each of these bids succeeded and achieved a total sum of €1,504,416 for development work in Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. These were for major programmes of medical intervention for people with cataracts, glaucoma and vision impairment as well as orthopaedic surgery, physiotherapy and prosthetics for people with disabilities. The funding also enabled a wider range of benefits through HIV/AIDS awareness raising, empowerment of women’s rights, micro-enterprise schemes and primary education bursaries.

Following this, we then supported the monitoring and reporting on these programmes. We also took the lead role in moving cbm on to the next phase of longer term Government co-funding. Our work to achieve this included: detailed programme planning and design both in the field with cbm partners and regional staff in Africa; major bid preparation; development of a strategic plan and policy documents; and presentations and meetings with senior staff at Irish Aid. This work was all successful and block funding of a further €2,550,000 over three years was granted.

industry logos