Hi everyone! Welcome to the first edition in 2024 of HandsTogether, the email newsletter of the Hands at Work UK Office.
You’ll notice a theme to this edition, which is focused on finances and giving. If you’ve been supporting Hands at Work for a while, you’ll know that this is not a normal focus, but we are doing it because it’s important for the work of Hands at Work at this particular moment. Over the last three years our income, which comes entirely from generous individual and partner giving, has been pretty consistent. However, the needs in Africa have increased. Over the past two years, here in the UK we have deliberately depleted our reserves to enable the work to continue as planned. That is obviously an approach that can only work once; once the reserves are spent you can’t keep topping up the gap.
That is where we find ourselves in 2024. We have a bit of wiggle room, as the exchange rates have been generous to us during 2023, but we know that this is a temporary reprieve. The headline is that we expect income of approximately £220,000 for the three essential services this year, but we need £250,000. That’s a gap of £30,000.
The model of Hands at Work is that of long-term, committed support of vulnerable communities in Africa, backed with long-term, committed giving from individuals and from the International Church. For many reasons, we’d absolutely love to plug that gap by advocating for the need in Africa and for churches and groups to step up to commit to provide the financial support.
However, generous one-off giving has always been a significant part of how we meet our income needs for the 3ES. I mentioned the expected 3ES income of £220,000. Only about £160,000 of that is from committed, regular giving. Approximately £60,000 will come from one-off gifts. This year we need to be more deliberate and intentional in asking for money and more imaginative in encouraging financial support from people who do not directly support Hands at Work at the moment.
You may have heard that we started this year with a day of prayer with a financial focus and we’ll be working hard to try and encourage people to raise money and support Hands at Work. There is already a lot of great activity going on, but we’ve historically not been great in sharing those stories. We’re going to do more, which we are hoping might inspire you to do something similar (or completely different) to help close the gap. For example, you can read in the newsletter about The Neptune Cub pack in Biggleswade who ran a ‘sponsored loo push’ to raise money to support the Mafambisa Community in South Africa.
Knowing that I’d have to be encouraging others to raise sponsorship this year, I thought it would be remiss of me not to walk the walk, and so I’ve started the year with my own fundraising effort. I’ve completed my first ultra-marathon running race, further than I’ve ever run before at 50 miles. I used Just Giving to collect some sponsorship and then sent the link to friends, family and work colleagues, and have managed to raise £1800, for which I am very grateful. As well as the money, however, it’s been an excellent opportunity to raise awareness of the work of Hands at Work and to advocate to different parts of my family and social network. It’s also led on to unexpected further opportunities. I was also sponsored with ten amazing jars of homemade honey, which I’ve then sold to raise another £60 – enough to provide support for a child for three months. Now, that doesn’t solve our income issue, but even just my one effort is 6% of the gap. Another 17 and the gap is closed!
Having used the Just Giving system it really is pretty easy to get started. If you search for ‘just giving hands at work’, find the Hands at Work just giving page and then click ‘fundraise for us’, you can follow the steps.
You don’t need to be undertaking a marathon, or even any physical activity. Maybe you have some homemade produce that you can sell at your office or church, or maybe you could organise a bake sale at a summer fete this year. Equally, it might not cost you anything at all: making sure that we’ve got your gift-aid declaration up to date makes a significant difference to our income, and I’d encourage you to fill in the gift-aid form that’s on the Hands at Work website and linked to in this newsletter.
You may find this leads you into interesting conversations along the way. Across the world there are a number of ‘friends and family’ partnerships that support communities in Africa. These are very similar to church partnerships but are where work colleagues and/or family members group together to commit to supporting a particular community for the long term. We have a couple in the UK already, which have made a real difference, and we’d love to encourage more.
Please do hear the call to action this year. We’re incredibly grateful for the generosity of everyone who supports Hands at Work, but we want to see enough money coming in to meet the needs in Africa. It’s tough to provide that support on the ground, and it would be a real shame if it boiled down to just cash being the factor that limited what could be achieved.
So, be moved, be inspired, and do a little (or big) something to help Hands at Work during 2024.