The Charity Finance Group has started its first fundraising campaign in a bid to reduce an income shortfall of “as much as £500,000” resulting from the impact of Covid-19.
The membership body employs 21 people and had an income of £1.8m last year, according to the Charity Commission.
In a statement, the CFG said it was under the same pandemic-related pressures as its members and, as a result, it had for the first time begun an individual fundraising campaign, which is being hosted on the online giving platform JustGiving.
The statement said: “It’s one of a series of measures that we are implementing to help us close our funding gap, which could be as much as £500k, and help ensure that CFG is here for the long term.
“Of course, we don’t think that this… will be achieved solely through the generosity of our members; however, every donation helps us close the gap and hopefully also brings our need, and our value, to a wider audience.”
CFG said infrastructure was a difficult area to fundraise for, while sponsorship, grant applications, new products and services, and membership campaigns would all form part of its income streams. It will also be exploring cost-saving measures.
The CFG said it had healthy reserves going into the pandemic, which gave it some time to adjust its operating model, but that its pivot to virtual and digital delivery of services would take some time to generate income.
“The vast majority of our expenditure is in staff salaries and clearly reducing our headcount is something that we wish to avoid, and we have made a commitment to our team and those we support that we will do what we can to preserve CFG’s charitable activities,” said the statement.
“Reduced headcount will mean reduced capacity to deliver. We have no doubt at the long-term sustainability of CFG as an organisation, and have a number of different avenues we are pursuing to ensure we’re here to keep providing essential support to the sector for the future.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the membership body had raised £1,245 from 23 supporters via the JustGiving page.