Annual review 2007/08

Our future

Growing future finance

Making a difference

Donations, grants and sponsorship income are crucial for us as a charity. It’s what will keep our work going and make life better for people experiencing mental illness. We are working hard to access new and varied sources of income.

Making it happen

In 2007/08, we increased income raised for our public affairs activities to £2.9 million, recruited new donors, started to embed fundraising within Rethink’s culture, and developed a new fundraising strategy for the next five years.

Making an impact

• The total income generated by the fundraising team increased by 25.4% achieving an income of £2.9 million for our public affairs activities.
  
  
• We developed our relationships with companies who attended our House of Lords event on employment, and secured a Department of Health grant for an employers guide on reasonable adjustments for mental illness to be produced in 2008/09.

• We recruited almost 1,200 new individual donors this year through street and door to door fundraising.
  
  
• A total of £430,358 was raised from legacy income.
  
  
• We secured a new three year grant of £65,000 from the Henry Smith Charity towards the core costs of the National Advice Service.
  
  
• We secured our largest grant award on record of £18 million from the Big Lottery Fund and Comic Relief for Time to Change, in partnership with Mind, Mental Health Media and the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London.
  
  
• An Income Generation Taskforce brought together members and staff to produce and ambitious new five year strategy to increase our income again.

Moving forward

In the next year, we’ll embark on our new strategy:

• We’ll maintain our performance by raising funds from charitable trusts and companies.
  
  
• We’ll more actively promote legacy giving.
  
  
• We’ll introduce measures to improve the rate of return of our individual fundraising, test new media like mobile phone texting to increase our donor base, and in particular we’ll increase the retention rates of our existing donors.
  
  
• We’ll provide an increased level of advice and support to our local services and groups to help their fundraising efforts and review how best to communicate with our supporters through a Supporter Relationship Taskforce.
  
  
• We’ll establish a new major donor fundraising programme with the recruitment of a volunteer leadership group.

Moving you forward

• If you are already one of our supporters, thank you. Please help us realise our ambitions by continuing your support and/or asking a friend, employer or family member to support us.
  
  
• If you are new to Rethink, please consider how you can best support our future growth.
  
  
• Please contact 0845 456 0455 or info@rethink.org.