New family holiday charity- starting out- need advice

Your location could be important. I also know of one or two charities providing similar services - Adventure Holidays and Calvert Trust, to name but two at opposite ends of the spectrum for scale and sophistication.

Have a look at the Charity Commission website for charities in your area, and speak to those who have offered here to discuss their services with you. It's a tough area you're looking at!

Cheers

Gerry

I fundraise from trusts and foundations for a charity (BREAK) which provides respite and holidays for children and adults with disabilities (not their families). We have a holiday centre based in Sheringham, Norfolk, but clients come to us from all over the UK, although we are not a national charity. The rest of our care work (childrens homes, adult day care, family assessments etc is localised to Norfolk clients).The holidays are the only service we raise money for, apart from special and capital projects at our other facilities.

The cost to us for a week's holiday including all overheads averages at about £2K per person, although we subsidise around 56% of that cost directly through fundraising income. The remainder is either paid by the client's local authority, the client's family, or the client's family or carer secures individual funding from elsewhere to allay the cost.

I'm responsible for bringing in about 50% of our voluntary income, and I can tell you it is tough. We are neither fish nor fowl in the eyes of some funders, as some consider the f/r income as 'revenue', although it is in fact contributing towards a 'product', i.e. the respite care. Also we are seen as being in receipt of local authority funding, although it is nowhere near covering the true cost to us.

Please have a look at our website [url]www.break-charity.org[/url] for more info, or you can contact me on 01263 820728 if you'd like to chat further. Good luck!

Molly Housego MInstF (Cert), ILM (Cert)
Fundraising (Trusts) & Legacy Officer

Just to reiterrate what Martin has said regarding Local Authority grants. Most if not all are moving away from grant giving to tendering. Those which still have grant schemes are prescribing these more tightly than ever!

So basically identify as early as you can do what the paramaters of their support are and how and when this would be allocated.

Local authority funding can be a bit awkward to get. Many councils I've come across will refer people to a service without any intention of paying for it.
Council grants seem to be a thing of the past, with tendering for services being the way forwards (along with subcontracting within those contracts).

By all accounts contracting for services can have fierce competition, with larger charities having some advantage in resources and expertise. There is no loyalty to particular groups or areas, merely cut and thrust of best value contracts.

However, if you must set up a new charity, it will take time and effort. And joining another charity thats already done the hard work is considerably easier and quicker. Just don't have so much control.

There are a number of charities out there already that offer holidays to disadvantaged families - CHICKS (I have no connection with them) immediately springs to mind for one. It may be worth contacting them to see whether they have anything in your area - if not, perhaps you can work with them rather than duplicating? - this will give you the advantage of working with an already recognised name and fundraising support. Despite charities being "nice", fundraising is fiercely competitive as there are far many more deserving causes out there than money is available. Unfortunately, no-one will give you money 'just because' you are doing something for others. Setting up a new charity is just as challenging as setting up a new business - if not more so, especially as I presume you will need to fundraise for premises? Research is essential.

Where to start: [url]www.charitycommission.gov.uk,[/url] your local volunteer bureau and Google - I'm sure others will be able to suggest other avenues.