We are currently in the midst of yet another financial crisis and are considering how we can move forward or if we cannot continue at all – which would be devastating for all concerned
Why are we in a financial crisis?
- The economic climate is poor meaning that donations and income from fund raising have decreased
- Running costs have increased e.g. utility bills
- The number of funders who give grants is getting smaller with more organisations chasing the same funding pots
So how does BIADS work?
We have three main services
Activities – this work is funded by the National Lottery until September 2027
Carer support – the Henry Smith Charity funds this work until January 2026 – we cannot reapply to them as they have changed their funding criteria
Day care/social club – this service is the only one that has to be paid for – at this time we are not getting enough people into the centre to make a profit
Running costs – alongside the services described above there are other costs we have to cover such as salaries for staff undertaking management tasks, admin and finance to name a few. These costs are covered by donations, fund raising etc. – all of which have declined.
When anyone attends any of our activity services we ask for a small donation of £2.50 per person towards refreshments and running costs however the money collected just covers refreshments and leaves the running costs still to cover.
General running costs stand at approximately £15,000 per month – £180,000 a year and as we said earlier the income for the general fund is not covering this so we are having to make some serious decisions about what we can do and what we can’t.
We have some ideas as to how we can address this issue but there isn’t a quick fix so we are looking to you, our members for ideas and support – please get in touch if you can help in anyway.
Some ideas we have are
- Diversifying our day care offer to try to get more people through the door for support
- Looking at the possibility of opening another shop
- Reviewing our membership fees – we stopped charging a fee some time ago but we may have to instigate a more realistic membership fee
- Obviously we will continue to make funding bids but even when we have put our heart and souls into a bid the answer could still be ‘no’
To explore these ideas further we are holding a meeting on Wednesday 20th August at 2pm – please come along and help us to find a way out of this crisis
