I hope my friends and colleagues who work for charities and community organisations won’t be too offended if I say that sometimes we are rather a whingeing, moaning bunch of people!
There can be plenty to complain about. Our greatest concern is probably that the demand for our services is growing. A commercial company would rejoice at this! But unfortunately most of our young clients can’t afford to pay for them, and so we need to find our funding elsewhere.
Most charities get some form of grant from local government but more recently these have been turned into ‘contracts’ which, we are told, are better as they provide more security – I confess I don’t hear that argument echoed by fellow voluntary organisations. Especially as we now have to ‘bid’ for these contracts. This favours larger charities, or private companies who seize the chance of getting a slice of the action.
There is also a huge concern that in a climate of bank bailouts and possible tax cuts, there’s not going to be much money left in the public purse! Which means less funding from statutory organisations. Add to that losses on the stock market which means that Grant Making Trusts won’t have much to distribute – the financial outlook is bleak!
But thankfully there is a third source of funding to support the growing demands for our services – the Great British Public! Guildford YMCA is to benefit from a concert being performed by the Guildford Chamber Choir on 29 November at Holy Trinity Church. We’re also running a Christmas campaign to raise awareness and funds, for youth homelessness. Our Sleep £asy (typo intentional!) campaign will culminate in a ‘sleep out’ at Guildford Cathedral on Saturday 31 January. All these and more events can be found on our fund raising website http://www.lifechangefund.org.uk/
Although times are hard, the YMCA has been serving young people for over 160 years through two world wars and harder times than these. And we’re planning to be around for a lot longer yet!
There can be plenty to complain about. Our greatest concern is probably that the demand for our services is growing. A commercial company would rejoice at this! But unfortunately most of our young clients can’t afford to pay for them, and so we need to find our funding elsewhere.
Most charities get some form of grant from local government but more recently these have been turned into ‘contracts’ which, we are told, are better as they provide more security – I confess I don’t hear that argument echoed by fellow voluntary organisations. Especially as we now have to ‘bid’ for these contracts. This favours larger charities, or private companies who seize the chance of getting a slice of the action.
There is also a huge concern that in a climate of bank bailouts and possible tax cuts, there’s not going to be much money left in the public purse! Which means less funding from statutory organisations. Add to that losses on the stock market which means that Grant Making Trusts won’t have much to distribute – the financial outlook is bleak!
But thankfully there is a third source of funding to support the growing demands for our services – the Great British Public! Guildford YMCA is to benefit from a concert being performed by the Guildford Chamber Choir on 29 November at Holy Trinity Church. We’re also running a Christmas campaign to raise awareness and funds, for youth homelessness. Our Sleep £asy (typo intentional!) campaign will culminate in a ‘sleep out’ at Guildford Cathedral on Saturday 31 January. All these and more events can be found on our fund raising website http://www.lifechangefund.org.uk/
Although times are hard, the YMCA has been serving young people for over 160 years through two world wars and harder times than these. And we’re planning to be around for a lot longer yet!
