Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSH) has said its fundraising ambitions are “greater than ever before” despite challenges posed by the cost-of-living crisis.
Speaking at Fundraising Live last week, Liz Tait, director of fundraising at GOSH, said the charity maintains plans to raise £100m a year by 2025, up from around £70m currently.
The charity is eager to grow its income as it redevelops its current hospital and plans to build a new cancer facility, she said.
Tait also said NHS pressures were making the charity's services “even more important”.
“As a charity, we have quite a wide remit, and essentially we're funding everything that the NHS can't afford to fund,” she said.
“The challenges with the NHS are relatively well documented, and I think that that makes the work of the charity even more important in these times when a family is already facing a very traumatic experience when they've got a child in the hospital.”
Aim to raise £100m per year by 2025
Tait said the charity is aiming to raise £100m a year by the end of its five-year strategy to fund the hospital itself, which will need some “major redevelopment work”.
According to the charity’s latest annual accounts, its income for the year to March 2022 was £74.5m. Fundraising income streams accounted for 96% of this figure, with 91% being from donations and legacies.
“We’re building on many decades of great work at Great Ormond Street, and therefore we have a relatively balanced portfolio of income. And as part of our comprehensive strategy, we have what we call our eight by eight priorities. We have eight priorities that we think will deliver eight-figure net income streams over the period of our strategies. We're very focused, and we know that our top three priorities actually represent around three-quarters of our income and that’s committed giving, legacies and philanthropy.”
Founded in 1852, the hospital charity is “fortunate to have a long history of fundraising”, Tait said.
The cost-of-living crisis presents challenges and opportunities
When asked about the challenges and opportunities facing GOSH, Tait said: “I think they are often two sides of the same coin.”
For instance, the charity will be appealing to its supporters for help with the cost-of-living crisis, but has seen its portfolio of ultra-high-net-worth individuals perform particularly well despite this.
“I think that that's probably an opportunity for many charities when there are sections of society that even in a cost-of-living crisis do have the funds to give”, she said.
However, Tait said “public behaviour has shifted around the commitment to taking part in live live events” since the Covid-19 pandemic.
‘Most uncertain times in recent history’
GOSH is raising funds for a new Children's Cancer Centre, which received planning permission from the London Borough of Camden earlier this month.
The application is now waiting to be reviewed by the Mayor of London.
Tait explained: “One of our biggest challenges at Great Ormond Street is meeting the scale of ambition that the hospital has. So this is a nice problem to have, it's a very real challenge in terms of the transformation, they want to create a hospital, and therefore, our ambitions need to be greater than ever before in some of the most uncertain times in recent history”.
Despite these challenges, she emphasised the importance of carving out time for vital projects like equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and environment, social and governance (ESG).
This is “to make sure that we're meeting our commitments and driving for really positive change.”
