Fundraising Ideas
Tap into local regeneration, health or education initiatives. To work well these initiatives need local people at their heart - and a time bank is one way to achieve this because it values the skills, energy and time people have to offer.
Work with local service providers, like local authorities, health and education authorities to show them how a time bank can transform their needy service users into valuable assets.
Develop relationships with local voluntary and charitable trusts as well as national grant-making bodies to explore ways of attracting new kinds of volunteers through the time bank - participants who never thought they had anything valuable to offer.
Contact local businesses and suppliers and offer to match local people's time with contributions of surplus stock, sponsorship offers or employees time.
List of funders who have supported time banks
- Community Fund
- District and Borough councils
- Charitable trusts and foundations (Kings Fund, Bridge House Estates Trust
Fund, Lloyds TSB Foundation, Nationwide, Tudor Trust, Phoenix Fund, and local grant
providers. These were for specific focus time banking projects)- Home Office
- Countryside Agency
- Regional associations
- Single Regeneration Budget
- Education Action Zone
- Health Action Zone
- European Social Fund
- European Regional Development Fund
Other ideas may be the New Opportunities Fund, or funding from the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit. To keep up to date on funding news visit www.access-funds.co.uk which has a free email update.
Sample budget for one year to run a time bank
Cost Broker, NI, pension (roughly 18,000 3 days per week) 12,500 Travel etc 750 Set up costs including insurance 3,250 Overheads 4,000 Information and publicity 400 Training 400 TOTAL 21,300 Other costs will include recruitment, a computer if you do not have access to one, and possibly legal fees/management advice if setting up a new organisation. There may also be specific costs for your area or organisation.
The number of days given for the broker is a minimum. Time bank participants often help with running their time banks, but even so the ideal situation is to have the broker work full time. Often time banks start with the broker part time for a year to get the project started, and then increase it to full time to meet the increasing demands on them.
Responses based on Community Fund application
A set of example responses to Community Fund questions is available to download as a Word document (71kb)
