Trustee's Annual Report 2023/24 ,Wishing Re9lstered wlth ' n+haro FUNE)RAISING ## **Summary of Purpose** The promotion of the efficiency and effectiveness of charities and the effective use of charitable resources for the benefit of the public in England and Wales by providing consultancy, advice and other services designed to support the administration, infrastructure and operation of charities and voluntary organisations. Wishing Others Well acts as an additional resource that front-line organisations can call upon to satisfy a particular need or simply for advice. We offer consultancy and other types of support to UK charities and not for profit organisations with a view to offering some relief to their financial or operational pressures, which can at times severely restrict their ability to deliver their Public Benefit efficiently. ## **The Sector continues to struggle** The ongoing Cost of Living Crisis, along with a combination of further falls in the volume and value of donations and increases in operating costs, show no signs of abating. This persistent uncertainty over; slowed growth, inflationary pressures and recruitment challenges means the Sector, battling to recover from the devastating aftermath of Covid, is less and less able to cope. *A staggering 81% of charitable organisations consider the economic situation to be the biggest challenge facing the Sector now and for the immediate future. While 25% of fundraisers had experienced a decline in their income; 22% had missed their fundraising objectives completely and almost half (of charitable organisations that missed their targets) stated that individuals tended to give less. More than one in five had experienced a rise in general costs of more than 30% which in itself is putting a significant strain on finances. The most concerning areas of cost increases were Energy and Staffing costs and even fewer organisations (at 41%) were optimistic that they would thrive when compared to the same responses in 2021 (61%). *Sources: Charity Digital “The status of UK Fundraising 2023” & Markel State of the UK Charity Sector 2023 **Summary of Activities** Our Public Benefit is derived from the support advice and help that we offer to the Trustees, volunteers and staff of the charities which we work with. Supporting them at ground level to be more efficient and effective in their own endeavours. ## **A difficult Year for Wishing Others Well** Whilst we and our Network of donors (both private and corporate) were not immune to the outside influences negatively affecting the Sector as a whole, we also experienced several set-backs specific to our team. We employed our first member of staff as a Bid-Writer, anticipating that we could offer this service free of charge (where a substantial fee is levied by the vast majority offering this support). Unfortunately, they, along with every member of our Board of Trustees, experienced significant health issues to either themselves or their immediate family. As we are in our infancy and still very much reliant on our Trustees for an immense amount of our activity, these set-backs severely hindered our growth and development and indeed our very first employee had to leave the role to care for a relative, before they could make the desired impact. ## **The Year in Numbers** ## **Future Plans** Despite the difficulties we faced, we remain committed to our charitable objectives and the reaction we get when informing people about our goals is overwhelmingly positive and is a constant source of inspiration. We are confident that a substantial donation will be received during the next financial year and have already begun to plan for how these funds can be best used. Our aim will be to do two things. The first is to make some financial contributions to a number of fundraising activities and secondly to publicise these contributions in an engaging, social-media friendly way, in order to grow our following and encourage more donors and organisations to work with us. We have set ourselves an ambitious Target for 2024/25 to make donations of £10,000 and to double our following on social media. We have committed to build a new website to best reflect the focus on these targets and this again should be completed by the end of the next reporting cycle. We believe that these plans will lay the foundations for an even bigger impact in the 2025/26 Financial Year and beyond! ## **Accounting** The Accounts for this year were filed as Receipts and Payments and show that we received £13,000 (an encouraging year on year increase) in donations from personal and corporate donors to support our work and this was used for General Running Costs. The bulk of our outgoings was Staffing and the next highest expenditure was on Insurances. ## **Board of Trustees** We are delighted that despite the challenges mentioned earlier in this Report, the founding Board remains stable and committed and we remain open to the idea of adding others with relative experience to the table. ## **Trustee Statement** The Trustees confirm that we have full regard to the guidance issued by the Charity Commission with regards to Public Benefit. CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLANO AND WALES 1199874 Recelpts and payments accounts CC16a For thè p•rfod Section A Receipts and payments Unr•¥trl¢tgd fund• Re$trl¢t•d fvnds Endowment Total funds La•t y•ar loth• nMr•*l£ loth• rt•*•#t£ bJth• Mar•st£ Al Re￿IP¢S Sub tot•l(Gross Income for AR) 14002 13M92 A2 Ass•t and Inve81m￿ MI￿, (M• tabl•l. ub tot•1 13.002 5,000 A3 Payments EnlertolnTrMnt 112 173 173 1517 TnAtee In¥w Bank ch Salarfe8 111 237 237 Sunthks Sub to¢al 11.72 11.72 A4 As••t *n¢J Ibwestment iè• t•ble Sub to 11.729 11.729 4.576 N•t OfrKeIp￿[Paym•ntsJ A5 Tran8f8ts ￿two￿ funds A6 Cash fundo la•t y•ar •nd Cash funds th1$ y•ar ond 1.273 424 1,273 1.2n CCXX R1 a￿nIS ISSI 231041202S Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Unrestricted funds to h￿r￿bI£ R6$trlet•d fund$ to n•Awt£ Endimment lund¥ to nur••t£ atsgori•s Detalls B1 Ca$h funds HSBC 1.897 Tot•1 cash funds 1,897 Unrostrlet•d funds Refjtrl¢t•d funds lo n￿1•**£ Endt>wment funds to n••rn•t£ Details B2 Other mon•tsry asy•ts tts whlth s¥•t b•lo current￿￿* Detalls Cost lopllon B3 Investment assels Furbd to whl¢h a6so¢ b•kin Dttsils ¢oJt loMf•nall 0￿1 B4 Assets retain•d for th• charitys own us• Fund io which l•blU¢ r•l•h8 Detalls Whn *J• BS Liabllltles SlgThed by one trustees on b8h8N Of all the twste8S SvJnalure Print Narne Date of roval CCXX R2 ￿)Unts ISSI