In the past 12 months people in the UK gave over £103 billion to charities. One major event in raising money for charity is the BBC Children in Need Show, which raised £43,507,536. This is a remarkable achievement!
Currently I am raising money for the St Andrew’s Burns Unit based in Broomfield Hospital Chelmsford, which treats thousands of adults and children every year. The St Andrew’s Centre is a massive, super-regional facility. It serves a population of 9.8 million people across Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, and London, and indeed patients came from all over the world. Because the National Health Services (NHS) funding only covers standard operations, the St Andrew’s Burns Unit relies upon charity to pay for extras. For example, the Burns Unit outreach bus is the first of its kind in the UK and costs around £68,000 per year to run. In addition it helps children and adults affected by life-changing burn injuries, trauma, cancer and reconstructive conditions. By the beginning of August I had raised over £3,033.
This is not the first time I have raised money for charity. Last year, for instance, I raised over £5,000 for our local hospice (Farleigh Hospice) by dying my hair pink. The year before I raised money for dementia care in Chelmsford by walking eight miles with some of my Rotary chums. A few years previously I raised several thousand pounds by dying my hair blue for the J’s. a hospice for people who were between 18 years and 45 years old.
The biggest amount of money I helped to raise was in the years 2001 to 2003 when I was the senior minister of Central Baptist Church, Chelmsford. We totally reconstructed the church building. It included a first-floor worship area, street-level offices and meeting rooms and a three-person glass-sided baptismal pool. The initial estimate for the work was £1.3 million, but in the end it cost us £2 million. For a church with no wealthy members that was quite a challenge. We only achieved raising £2 million by most of the members double-tithing – a tenth of our giving went to the church and to the charities we supported, and a tenth of our giving going to the building fund. The grand opening of our remodelled premises took place on Saturday 28 April 2001. To our delight a plethora of community leaders were present: the vice-Lord Lieutenant (the representative of our late Queen Elizabeth), the mayor of Chelmsford, the bishop of Chelmsford, the chief executives of Essex County Council and of Chelmsford Borough Council (now City Council), the vice chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University, our local university, and two distinguished members of the House of Lords who lived locally. Not surprisingly, the church began to grow again. There were times when a 1000 or more non-church people came through our doors every week. One year I calculated that in a 12-month period we probably had 25,000 different visitors. In 2002 there were some 200 members, but when I left there were 400 members plus another 600 who regarded our church as their church. Central Baptist Church lived up to its billing as “a strong and vibrant city-centre church serving the people of Chelmsford”.
There was another occasion when I was Principal of Spurgeon’s College in south London (1986-1991) when I helped to raise money. At my urging the college adopted a new financial policy. In 1988 the student fees were raised to a more realistic level. Students were encouraged to set up support groups which amongst other things helped them obtain the necessary money to pay their fees. These two policies revolutionised the college’s finances and resulted in the college being in the black after eight years of being in the red.
Compared to my fundraising when I was in active ministry, raising money for the St Andrew’s Burns Unit is a relatively small challenge. Yet I dare to think, that it is an important challenge. Raising money for charities is one of those things which people in the UK do well.
Editor’s note: If you wish to support Paul’s fundraising campaign for the St Andrew’s Burns Unit – you can do so here.