Sourcing funding can be very difficult for many non-profit organisation. It’s not easy at the best of times and now especially while Britain is being squeezed by the recession, it’s becoming harder. Many charities and good causes are struggling to find funding and face closing down altogether.
Mulberry Community Project are one such charity. They help with people with drug and alcohol dependency problems and have come very close to closing due to lack of funding. They joined easyfundraising recently to help boost their funds by shopping online.
Keith Stevenson, Chairman of Mulberry, told us their story of how they almost gave up:
“The Mulberry Community Project is a new venture, we provide a safe environment where people seeking recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. We aim to give them the tools which will enable them to live an abstinent drug free, non chaotic life and to able to sustain it.
“Funding is obviously one of the biggest problems faced by any charity and we are no different to anyone else.
Facing closure
“We were getting no funding from anywhere despite completing many fundraising applications and we got to the stage where if we did not get a certain amount in the bank by a certain time, we would have to close the charity.
“In November 2010 I interviewed a chap called Paul who might have been joining us as a client to go through our recovery programme to help him get to grips with his alcohol problem. Two days ago, I was told that Paul had died. He was only in his early 30’s and should have had plenty of life left. I felt distraught and very upset and thought that that was it. As Chairman for the charity I decided I would close it down. I felt that maybe we were giving people false hope and building up their expectations and that wasn’t fair especially as we still had no funding.
Never give up
“Then later that day, word came through that the funding that we needed for us to continue had come through quite unexpectedly and from a source where no request had been made.
“It doesn’t mean that we are financially sound by any means but it does mean that we have a little bit of resource so we can seek more. Paul’s death shows the need for what we are trying to do and funding from an unexpected funder means that we can continue to try to help people like Paul and indeed we have already had another referral from a person who knew Paul and is now seeking recovery from his problem.
“The message is despite everything that may seem to be going wrong never never give up.”
Mulberry Community Project need your help to continue their vital work. To support them when you shop online with easyfundraising, click here.
If you’d like us to feature your cause on our blog, please get in touch with becky@easyfundraising or leave a message in the comments area below.