As we come to the end of 2022 and look back, we can now really see & appreciate the impact of the grant for Daring to Dream from the Postcode Community Trust.
We sought their support for essential core costs of Daring to Dream as well as some additional funds for us to extend our marketing and develop a contractual marketing relationship that would extend our reach and influence.
When first setting up a charity, you really don’t think of those essential core costs that underpin everything such as our website provision, which needs a domain, hosting, plugins, Lleswyl needs another streaming site and domain etc.
Nor did we consider how much would be our core costs related to communications such as Zoom fees, costs of 
annual subscription to Adobe, to Canva for graphics, mailchimp, video editing fees, cost of some print, and for us purchasing of frames for wall art and thank you card collations in our transformed rooms and more.
In 2022 we have transformed another 4 rooms and that is an amazing amount of framed thank you cards and wall art. The creation by keen volunteers Julie and Roxanne and the frames and some other elements funded from this grant.
Then the good running of a charity requires huge amounts of professional advice, licenses, and service fees to cover everything from insurance to external examiner fees, our Quick Books fees, bank charges, music licenses, our small lottery license, some consultancy fees, our registration with the Information Commissioner to name just a few.
And yet another area of costs that we hadn’t considered in those early days and which of course, have grown as we have grown, have been the subscriptions and administrative fees connected with every donation platform: Just Giving, Stripe, GoCardless, Pay Pal, Donr text. Our wonderful grant from the Postcode Community Trust has covered all of that as well.
At the same time, we have made excellent progress with development of some marketing delivery, improved graphics and comms and the promotion of our next Lleswyl!
Even more, this grant has helped us develop as a charity, it has freed up funds raised to be spent directly on our charitable activities and mostly not on core costs, and for that we are extremely grateful.
It has freed us to develop our governance and strategic planning as well as to help develop additional partnerships and nurture current ones. In the first 6 months of this financial year, we have already raised nearly 130% more income than we had in the whole of the last financial year! (I know money isn’t everything, however it is not possible to deliver on charitable activities without it.)
So yes, this much needed and appreciated grant has covered a lot of our core costs and some marketing costs, but it has also freed some time for us to help Daring to Dream to grow and develop even more – so that we have really begun to put down real roots as well as grow some more branches, leaves, and flowers.
On behalf of all the trustees and all of our beneficiaries at Daring to Dream, to you all in the Trust – we offer you our heartfelt thanks for your support and having faith in us and what we are doing for adults in Wales living with physical illness.
Diolch yn fawr iawn!
A poignant reminder of what your contribution is helping us do and why it is so important – ‘Our Story’.
