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Funding is tight - so we're writing to potential supporters and this is what we've told them
- ciaran583
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Securing funding for our life-changing, sometimes life-saving work is a year-round task.
A combination of rising costs and increased demand has made life tough for everyone in the charity sector. We are no different.
In the past few weeks, we've stepped up our efforts to find new supporters.
We are asking national funding bodies to take a look at what we are doing and to consider offering us their financial backing.
We are also speaking to a number of smaller organisations, including local trusts and businesses which run community action programmes.
We will be sending out further applications in the coming weeks and months.
Most bids are submitted online. However, in a number of instances we were invited to apply by letter.
So, while we are waiting for the responses to roll in, we thought we'd share a generic version of the letter.
Here it is:
Dear Sir/Madam,
I’m writing on behalf of the New Futures Project, a welfare organisation for marginalised women and girls’ here in Leicester and the wider county.
I’ll do my best to convey the scope and importance of what we do, but there is an awful lot to tell.
A registered charity, the project was created in 2003 to support women exposed to the violence and exploitation inherent in sex work.
However, we’ve greatly broadened our focus in the past few years and now help women and girls who are living with the traumatic legacies of sexual violence, grooming and exploitation, and domestic abuse.
Many of these women are coping with the corrosive effects of poverty and social exclusion.
Many have stories to tell of poor mental health, addiction and troubled childhoods in care or in neglectful, even abusive, families.
In the past year, we’ve worked intensively with approximately 400 adult women and 100 girls, (from the age of 11), who are facing up to the worst that life could have thrown at them.
We help them through a combination of trauma-informed counselling and practical, everyday social work - assistance with matters of health, housing, welfare rights, criminal justice/probation, and immigration/asylum.
Demand for our services has never been higher. Therefore, we are writing to potential supporters, chiefly those with strong links to Leicester and Leicestershire.
There are three distinct aspects of our work we are hoping you will consider supporting.
Our drop-in and outreach services:
Our outreach team – including some of our wonderful volunteers - heads out each week to the streets where the women work, bringing friendship, hot food and drinks, condoms and sexual health advice.
Drop-in, which runs from a kitchen/lounge area at our home in London Road, brings women to us during the day.
They come here for a break from the world outside. We provide hot food, clothes, toiletries/sanitary products, laundry facilities, and a shower.
Some of our homeless clients take an opportunity to catch up on their sleep here - a safe alternative to doing so outdoors.
Every minute of contact with the women through outreach and drop-in is vital. We use this time to gain their trust and to put together detailed plans to help them now and in the future.
We host weekly or regular visits by specialist external services for addiction, sexual health, and Hepatitis C, while Leicestershire Police’s sex worker liaison officer is a frequent visitor, and a great ally and advocate of the project.
We operate a needle exchange to ensure injecting equipment is not carelessly left in public places.
On the lighter side, our drop-in team organise weekly arts and craft days, and self-care ‘pamper’ sessions. Many of the women love our afternoon Bingo games.
Broadly speaking, the combined cost of these services approaches £500 a month. Furthermore, approximately 50 women and girls benefit from them each month.
The Transitions programme:
This aspect of our work concentrates on some of the most vulnerable girls and young women in Leicester and Leicestershire.
Aged 11 to 25, their difficult early lives have left them at risk of being lost, perhaps irretrievably, in the criminal justice system.
They have been professionally assessed as potential or actual victims of sexual exploitation by older men – in some cases, to the point of being pushed towards sex work.
Like so many of the older women we support, they tell harrowing stories of male violence, sexual exploitation and rape, coercive control and domestic abuse.
Many are dealing with the consequences of growing up in chaotic, neglectful and, in some cases, abusive family homes, while others experienced difficult early years in care.
For some, involvement in ‘county lines’ drug or gang-related activity – in our experience, as exploited victims rather than perpetrators – has brought them into contact with the police and the courts.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, many are homelessness or precariously housed, and have long since drifted away from education, training or employment. Some are struggling with depression and are self-harming.
And that’s where we come in. As far as resources allow, of course.
After an initial assessment, the Transitions caseworker we pair them with will be in frequent contact - daily, if needed. Clients attend intensive therapy once, sometimes twice, a week to deal with their trauma.
Our approach has had a positive effect on the 38 individuals we have supported to date under Transitions.
Progress made by our Transitions clients includes greatly reduced contact with older men, re-engagement with school/college, reduced alcohol/drug use and fewer instances of going missing from home.
A hardship/bursary fund for our students:
In November 2023, we launched our first counselling training courses, externally validated and accredited by the Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body, (CPCAB).
A growing number of people are drawn to counselling/therapy as a career, and we have been taken aback at the level of interest.
Depending on the qualification, our course fees range from £800 to £4,500 per course. Students can pay in instalments.
However, we’re worried some may be put off by the cost. To tackle this barrier to learning, we’d like to create a hardship/bursary fund, to ensure applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds are not excluded.
In conclusion, over the past few years, we have been stepping up efforts to generate income. We do this in a number of ways.
We offer a broader ‘non-crisis’ counselling service for people who are struggling with their mental health.
The fees for this service – set at a level to be as affordable to all as possible – help fund the crisis work outlined above.
Each year, we offer placements to social work undergraduates and trainee counsellors who need to experience the reality of working with marginalised people.
The students or their universities contribute to the cost of these placements.
While increasingly successful, these efforts to bring money into the project fall short of meeting the cost of our work, so we continue to rely on the generosity of our funders.
If you would like to know more about us, I can provide far more detail, including individuals’ stories, and some facts and figures to illustrate the impact we have on these women’s lives.
We’re just a short distance from the railway station and would love to welcome you to our home for a tour of the building and to meet our staff, volunteers and clients.
The New Futures Project offers a comprehensive welfare and counselling service for women and young people dealing with sexual abuse or exploitation, domestic violence, trafficking, poverty and debt, substance use or mental ill-health.
Call us on 0116 251 0803 or send us a message at: info@new-futures.org.uk
You can find us at 71 London Road, Leicester, LE2 0PE.
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