A Brief Word from Mr John Talbot

The International Fund-Raising Scene

Fund-raising is a complex and, often, disappointing experience.  You may think that all that has to be done is to get out into the marketing and fund-raising arena and, if you pitch your appeal in the right way, money will flow into the Hospital Group’s coffers.  Unfortunately, this is rarely the case.

We are very fortunate that the core of our voluntary donations comes from the worldwide Order of St. John.  Seven of the eight Priories are very generous, even more so than ever in 2010.  However, less than 20% of our total income comes from that source.  Where does the rest come from?

Firstly, there is a small number of individuals and family trusts that have been very loyal to us over many years.  Their commitment has been hugely helpful.  There is a smaller group of very dedicated commercial foundations who fund us regularly and, usually, very discretely.  The principal difference between these two types of donors is that the former tend to donate unrestricted funds that we can use at our discretion, whilst the latter give for tightly restricted purposes, such as items of equipment.  There is a good deal of overlap between the two but, in general, unrestricted funds are more helpful to us in that we can use them to pay for our recurrent costs, such as staff salaries.

Finding donors for really large projects is more difficult altogether.  There are, at present, three main areas that we need funds for:  more cataract surgery, diabetic eye disease screening and rebuilding our Gaza Hospital.  Each needs more than £1 million pounds.

It has become clear that Western governments are no longer interested in this sort of funding.  For instance, the Department for International Development (DfID) in the UK, does not fund any medical humanitarian aid project in the occupied territory.  We had hoped that we might receive funds from the USA government but lobbying over many years has not been successful. 

The recent loss of ECHO funding has taught us a painful lesson.  Inevitably we become reliant on funding organisations continuing to support us.  This substantial loss of income has entailed cutting back on some of our service commitments, and this has meant a small, but very regrettable, reduction in our staff complement.  A big effort now to raise money will afford us a modest cushion for the future, as well as allowing us to expand the services we provide for the people of the occupied territory.

Chairman, John Talbot