Funding update

As you know, this has been a very difficult year for us financially.  In May, we had to close a day a week to reduce our costs and we set ourselves an ambitious fundraising target which we needed to hit to avoid more cuts to our service this year.   

We have been very grateful for the support we have received locally.  Our crowdfunder, over the summer, raised over £11,000 and we want to thank everyone who got involved or who donated.  We also want to thank a local couple for their generous donation for our work in Bishop’s Stortford, after seeing how difficult our financial situation was in the Bishop’s Stortford Independent. 

We’ve also recently received grants from Ware Charities, Hertford Town Council, The Brazier Trust and Bishop’s Stortford Town Council.  These are one off grants, to enable us to dedicate time to restructuring our service so we can continue to deliver our lifechanging advice to those that need it across East Herts.  

As a local charity, we’re always focussed on helping local people in their time of need and it’s been challenging for us to admit that we need help to keep going.  Thanks to the support we’ve received, along with a number of efficiencies we have made, we are now confident that we will be able to maintain our advice service as it is for the rest of this financial year.   Looking beyond that, we are looking at ways to restructure our service while still meeting client need.  

To put the value of our work into context, in the last 12 months, we’ve

• supported 5,601 individuals with 15,764 issues, representing a 32% increase compared to the previous year. 
• achieved financial gains of over £2.5 million for our clients in this time frame. This includes helping:
  • 2,055 clients with 4,484  benefits issues, advising on rights, completing forms and challenging decisions
  • 452 clients achieve income gains (one off and regular payments) totalling £2,289,077. 
  • 1,013 clients with housing issues, of which 21% related to actual or threatened homelessness, supporting clients to remain in their housing or to fight repossession orders on their homes.

Our Treasury-approved financial modelling data for 2023/24 demonstrates our value to the East Herts community:

• We saved East Herts Council £178,294 through preventing homelessness and council tax arrears repayments
• We saved the NHS £376,458 through reducing use of mental health and GP services, and keeping people in work
• We saved local housing providers £445,548 by preventing housing evictions

The public value of our work in improving clients’ wellbeing, family relationships and positive functioning during 2023/24 is estimated at £10,560,982