Case Study: Sheffield M.E. Group

This is the case study for the December/January 2010 edition of SYFAB’s Funding News… we talk to Ute Elliott from the Sheffield M.E. Group about the high and low points of their fundraising journey so far…

When and why was your group set up?

Sheffield M.E. Group was set up in 2000. There are an estimated 1,000 people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and encephalis myelitis (ME) in Sheffield and many are not diagnosed, while others are misdiagnosed as having depression. There were also no services for people with CFS/ME in Sheffield at that time.

What does your group do?

Sheffield M.E. Group send members regular newsletters, have monthly drop-in meetings in a town centre venue, have a comprehensive library service (including a postal library), give IT support and internet access to those who do not have this facility at home, provides a membership contact scheme as well as an email support group. Our other services are open to all who wish to use them. These include the Information Line at the office, the Listening Ear help line, staffed by someone with CFS/ME, social events as well as an annual conference.

What made you decide to apply for funding, and what was the first funding you applied for?

I was running the group from home, with a little help from a volunteer while having to battle with my own illness. Because of this, I felt that the service we gave was inadequate and in order to give a reliable and extensive service, we needed to employ an information officer and have a solid office base.

We worked with the Sheffield Funding Advisor at SYFAB for months to get together a three-year application to the National Lottery Community Fund. We had help to firstly sift through the various possible funders, and then look closely at their criteria. After that we worked work out a budget, a timescale and how to phrase the answers to the questions. We always were set some homework in order to come well prepared to the next session.

Prior to that I had applied for smaller sums for a conference and for covering the cost of newsletters. This was before we were registered as a charity and we raised money from local funders.

How has your group and its funding needs developed along the way?

We rented an office at the Blades Enterprise Centre and stayed there for four years until Voluntary Action Sheffield (VAS) completed their new building, which we moved into in June 2007. We recruited a paid worker for 25 hours per week and drummed up more support from our members by combining AGMs with a social event, which people are far more likely to attend. We also had much support from VAS to help us learn about our new responsibilities, e.g. employing a paid worker. In addition, Sheffield Primary Care Trust (PCT) supported us by printing and posting our newsletters. During this time our membership rose gradually from 75 to 250.

What process does your group go through in deciding which funders to approach for different projects?

We ask SYFAB to do a funding search for suitable funders; then the funding subcommittee mark all the funders with yes, no or possibly. Once we are agreed, we then apply for funding to the yes group initially, but will also fill in some of the possibly group as a back up.

Before we fill in the forms, we have a clear plan of what we want, what we need and what each component costs. You also need to think of the timeframe in which you need the money and for how long. You need to consider if it is a one-off project or if your services will be still needed after that time.

What has been the high point of your fundraising experience?

Without a doubt receiving the first round of Lottery funding and then having another three years of partial Lottery funding.

It gets a bit complicated when you are dealing with a major, say 60% funder and you do have to find other funders to cover the missing 40%, as some will not fund ongoing costs, salaries or rent. So we needed advice on which funders are able to fund certain aspects of our work. In order to get continued funding from the Big Lottery we needed to add another project to our ongoing services. The first funding was for an information service and with the second one we added volunteer recruitment, training and co-ordination. This allowed us to expand our services, involve the service users more and to branch out to outlying areas (e.g. Barnsley, and Chesterfield), where there was no local support for people affected by CFS/ME.

And the low point?

We have arrived at the low point now, living off the savings we made during the six years of Lottery funding. 18 months prior to the end of the funding we engaged with the PCT and the Well-being Consortium to try and access funding from this summer onwards. Sadly neither has materialised.

The Sheffield Funding Advisor from SYFAB left the organisation and we no longer had the support on our fundraising (editors note - the new Sheffield Funding Advisor Caroline Burns is now in post). We are a very small local organisation and we do not have a skilled funding worker. All the funding work we do, is at the expense of other things like talking to our members, producing new, up-to-date information etc. We also find it difficult to focus as none of us are experienced in this area and need the support and knowledge of a professional.

There was nowhere else we could find any support and we just went off applying almost randomly if we thought that we matched the funder’s criteria. Needless to say we were not very successful and only managed to get small sums, £500 here and £700 there. We went through sheets and sheets of possible funders we found on the Internet but they were either not in the right category or our applications were refused (and in some cases we did not even get a single response).

One of our problems was that we actually had a year’s money in reserve; this meant that funders felt we were not needy enough. The other problem is of course that Charitable Trusts do not get enough interest on their investments at the moment due to the credit crunch.

We have attended Funding Fairs to try and make contact with funders, have set out our business plan and were extremely pleased to hear that SYFAB have appointed a new Sheffield Funding Advisor, whom we hope to work with as soon as possible.

If we are not successful in securing future funding, Sheffield M.E. Group will fold next year. This would be a great loss to the people affected by this chronic debilitating condition in the area, especially as the Rotherham support group folded last year and the Leeds support group is in danger of folding now. At least some of these people would have found Sheffield M.E. Group to be their nearest local support group.

What are the next fundraising steps for your group?

As stated before, to ask SYFAB for help not just with completing application forms but also helping us to choose the right funders. We are also working with Humber Learning Support to submit a funding bid there for training up volunteers to become more confident and skilled to enable them to take up some employment when the time is right for them.

Advice from Sheffield M.E. Group:

• Be absolutely clear what you want the funding for and what the management team is able to cope with

• Attend Funding Fairs

• Get help from SYFAB, your local Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) or any other suitable organisation in your area

• Start applying for funding early enough and expect to be turned down by a percentage of your potential funders

• Try for a three-year funding project if possible as it allows you to plan better for the future.

To contact Sheffield M.E. Group telephone 0114 253 6700, or contact them by email or visit their website here.