Funding business related charity work

Jenners

I run a Animal Ambulance / Pet Taxi along with other pet care services I offer, mainly people book me to take them to vets, kennels etc.

I am increasing asked if I can help out the local Wildlife Rescue Centre with the collection of injured animals. This is done by volunteers normally but they have seen my van / ambulance and know that I am kitted out for the service. As much as I would love to help them out I unfortunately can not afford to fund the fuel and time that this takes.

I am a new business and money is tight, but I was wondering if I could maybe add a branch to my business that could fund the charity work by me fundraising for it. Would I have to setup a charity for funds to be contributed to, then me use those funds to pay for fuel etc for the charity work that I do. Or can you just setup another account "charitable trust" maybe, and put my fundraising money into it.

I would appreciate if someone can advise me of a way I can still earn a living, aswell as helping local charities.

Thanks

Savvy_Sue

It gets complicated, I wouldn't think you'd really want to set up an entirely new charity just for this.

Have you talked to the Wildlife Rescue Charity themselves? They can quite legitimately reimburse your fuel expenses if they have the means to do so. They can also 'charter' your services and pay for your time as well, if that's a good use of their resources. Which, in some circumstances, it might be. Perhaps especially with a larger animal, or one needing special restraint.

There are quite rightly restrictions on how charities spend their money, but paying for a service which could be done by volunteers isn't out of the question. For example, I work for a small charity, and when my computers need attention I could get a volunteer in to fix them, but I run the risk a) of that volunteer not really knowing what they're doing and b) having to wait until they can spare the time. So sometimes I pay a professional to come in, because I know they'll fix the problem first visit (usually!), AND they'll come now rather than in a week's time. To our treasurer, that's a sensible use of resources, because waiting a week can cause huge problems.

Don't know if that helps at all.

Jenners

Thanks Sue, I will ask the centres involved if they can reimburse me, it just seems a bit weird for me to ask a charity to pay me LOL. Shows what sort of a business woman I am, I must toughen up.

I have had another thought ( full of bright ideas LOL ) would it be ok to ask for donations on my website to help fund the ambulance ? Maybe do car boots, ebay etc to raise funds. I could keep a tally of who donated how much and keep it separate to business, then when I need to spend some on fuel etc, issue a business invoice for it. Then if anyone questioned what I spent on what and who donated what I could easily provide details.

Its difficult but I really want to help the charities and I am sure that it will help me out business wise aswell, networking etc.

Savvy_Sue

I would advise you to discuss this with the centres involved. Technically I think if you say you are raising money for X charity then you are supposed to pass it on to X charity. And if you are raising money in X charity's name then their trustees should be aware of it. For example, a wildlife rescue charity might not want a company specialising in selling real fur coats to be linked to them ...

I would not be embarrassed about asking what their policy is on refunding expenses. Or about asking if you could ever offer your services on a professional, paid basis. They can always say no, BUT my feeling is that if a charity does not at least offer to reimburse mileage to volunteers, then it's a pretty poor show. And they are excluding people who might love to be involved, but cannot afford to get involved.

One of the things we do is offer food to our clients: a cooked meal in our drop-in and sandwiches and cake on our van. Most of this is provided by volunteers, and most of them don't ask to be reimbursed. But any who ask for it get the money ASAP. Those who post parcels to our clients in prison can reclaim the postage, and those who travel in from a distance can have their travel reimbursed up to a certain limit. If someone without a car is out on our business in the evening, we'll pay for a taxi home. This is all part of the charity's business, and if it needs to be paid for, we'll pay for it.

DH is trustee of another local charity, and they pay travel by whatever means necessary, no questions asked. Usually he takes our car to meetings and claims mileage, but it's a great help to know that if I need the car when he's going to a meeting for them, he can take a taxi without fuss. They'll also pay for childcare, sign or other interpretation - whatever's needed. Again, this is all part of that charity's business.

But you may find that a small amount of 'sponsorship' from your business, even if they don't want to use your services, will pay dividends long term ... Advertising in their newsletter, paying for a flyer to be printed etc. Oh, and if they run any 'events' seeing if you can take your taxi to show it off to people, perhaps alongside their own if they have one. Plenty of business cards ... Or maybe just giving a raffle prize, running a stall for them, etc!