Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) Children’s Charity expects to lose up to £25m in income as a result of the coronavirus crisis this year, its CEO has said.
In an update on the charity’s website last week, CEO Louise Parkes wrote: “With many of our major fundraising activities cancelled, we’re predicting a drop of as much as £25m in our income that supports the hospital this year.
“We understand these are difficult times. But any support you can give means you’ll be making a huge difference to seriously ill children and their families at GOSH.”
GOSH Charity had an income of £87.5m in 2018-19 according to the Charity Commission’s website, so the forecasted loss makes up more than a quarter of its income.
The charity launched its coronavirus appeal in March after it had to stop most of its fundraising activities because of the lockdown. The appeal has raised just over £1.6m so far.
Unlike most charities, GOSH did not initially furlough any employees, but a spokesperson said that “after careful consideration, we decided to put some of our staff on furlough leave”.
The spokesperson added that the charity is not planning to make any redundancies. “£25m is a huge sum of money, but what we are focused on now is trying to mitigate this as much as possible by finding creative new ways of fundraising through our emergency appeal, our virtual gala events and online community fundraising activities.”
GOSH Charity held its first virtual fundraising gala on 7 May. British singer Craig David was among the performers. Some 380 people took part, helping the event to raise over £36,000.
The charity has also recently raised £20,000 from selling rainbow face masks, and £168,000 from Royal Bank of Canada’s RBC Trade for the Kids event. The latter was held virtually for the very first time, with the company donating over $4m to more than 45 youth-focused charities around the globe.
