Christmas time is ‘business’ time – how charities prepare for Christmas
Christmas is a time for giving, yet this piece by Howard Sinclair (chief executive of Broadway Homelessness and Support) contemplates how to run Broadway the charity he has to run Broadway the business. Mr. Sinclair describes how “we cannot wait for the money to come in at Christmas and then decide how we spend it. We are not in the business of saying to people who are sleeping rough: ‘We’ll be back in a few weeks when we know how our Christmas appeal does and may be able to help you then’. People depend on us. They depend on us not only in December but for 365 days of the year in cold weather and hot weather, and everything in between”. If Christmas is a time of hope, this is no more so than in charity fundraising. With more welfare reforms coming and cuts in local government funding, many charities and voluntary and community sector organisations are hoping that they have enough to fund their services amid increasing demand into 2014.