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2024-12-31-accounts

Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Scottish Charity No. SC046975

The Trustees Annual Report and Financial Statements for

The Year Ended 31[st] December 2024

Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

Contents
Trustees Annual Report Page 3-8
Independent Examiner’s Report Page 9
Statement of Receipts and Payments Page 10
Statement of Balances Page 11
Notes to the Financial Statements Page 12-14

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Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

Trustees Annual Report

The Trustees have pleasure in presenting their report together with the financial statements and the Independent Examiner’s report for the year ended 31[st] December 2024

Reference and Administration Details

Charity Name: Fostering Compassion Charity No: SC046975 Principal Address: 1D Cockburn Halls Ormiston East Lothian EH35 5JB

Charity Trustees serving on the date of approval of the Trustees Annual Report :

Structure, Governance and Management

Constitution

Fostering Compassion began as the humane education project of the Winton Foundation for the Welfare of Bears (SCIO) Registered Charity No: SC042614. It was then separated from the Foundation and established as a charity in its own right on 11[th] November 2016 and is now known as Fostering Compassion (SCIO) Registered Charity No: SC046975 and is governed by its own constitution. The Trustees are the only members and they make up the Board.

Trustee Appointment

Charity Trusteeship is open to;

who subscribes to the purposes of the organisation and wishes to see them fulfilled.

Applications must be in writing and will be considered at the subsequent board meetings. All Trustees step down at the annual AGM but are eligible to be re-elected.

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Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

Objectives and Activities

The organisation is established for charitable purposes only, and in particular, the object is to advance animal welfare, the advancement of education and the advancement of health. In furtherance of these purposes the organisation will:-

Summary of the main activities in relation to these objects

2024 began with us still basking in the glow of our wonderfully successful and first ever Compassion Conference held in October 2023 to mark our 10[th] anniversary. We received a vast number of compliments, made many new contacts and the donation of $25,000 from our Keynote speakers to a Ukrainian project featured during our conference gained much publicity for Fostering Compassion throughout 2024. The conference was an exceptional achievement for us marking a very significant milestone and by far the largest event we have ever held. It firmly put our charity in the National and International forums, as a leader in the field of humane education.

2024 continued with the ongoing delivery of our services for care experienced and vulnerable children aged 3 - 25 years of age. Our services include our group workshops, our Compassion for Life programme and our one-to-one Support Sessions for children who don’t fare so well in group environments. These sessions called ‘Working with Worry’, ‘Coping with Change’, ‘Fostering Resilience’ and ‘Moving on from Mistakes’ are really popular and sought after, complementing our existing services nicely. We are currently developing another batch of four Support Sessions themed around nature and the environment and an additional Support Session themed around loss, grief and bereavement which can be offered when appropriate. Children being taken into care, often suffer a sense of real loss, even if that is a separation from a neglectful parent. Many children are still suffering loss from the pandemic too.

We continue to deliver workshops to full school classrooms - online and in person and 2024 saw us with our largest in person group ever - 23 children! We were delighted to welcome them all to our lovely Woodland Haven Room for our ‘Horsing Around - Why the Long Face’ workshop where the children got to spend time with the ever popular and much loved Therapy Ponies. Even the children’s teacher exclaimed at the end of the workshop ‘This has been the best day of my life!’ so our activities are enjoyed by children and adults alike!

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Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

Throughout 2024 we have continued to build on relationships with our many referral agencies and have made connections with new ones. We receive referrals from Social Work, Local Authorities, medical professionals, schools, Third Sector Children’s Charities and self referrals. We continue to receive a number of individual referrals from families desperate for support and with nowhere else to turn having excellent results with a number of these children.

Every Fostering Compassion workshop includes a ‘Gift of Compassion’ that the children create or donate to an animal in need. Our Animal Heroes workshop sees us team up with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and the children learn all about animals who save people and people who save animals. The Gift of Compassion from our Animal Heroes workshops are the Smokey Paws Animal Oxygen Mask resuscitation kits. These are used by Firefighters to help save animals who have been overcome by smoke in fires.

During the year, we were able to donate another five kits to the Highlands and Islands region of Scotland. Four of these kits went to the Isle of Skye which previously had no kits and the 5th went to the Isle of Raasay meaning we have kitted out two Scottish Islands helping keep their animals safe. This has brought the total number of kits we have donation to the SFRS to 43 and resulted in a Scottish Fire Chief praising the work of Fostering Compassion during a meeting of Scottish emergency services. High praise indeed for us. Not only that, but the story was also picked up by STV News and resulted in Fostering Compassion having its TV debut with a wonderful piece on our work. This in turn resulted in more media coverage and a request for a kit from the Isle of Sark Fire Station where their fire engine is pulled along by a tractor! We were delighted to provide a kit helping keep the animals on this small island safe.

We continue to have an excellent relationship with Edinburgh University and the Royal Dick School of Veterinary Studies holding our much loved ‘Be a Vet for the Day’ workshop annually. A student led workshop which gives the children a unique opportunity to access the school’s Clinical Skills lab, dress up in scrubs and get a feel for being a vet for the day and various veterinary practices including bandaging their teddies!

The Bob Harvey Award launched in 2022 jointly between Fostering Compassion and the Society for Companion Animal Studies entered its second year. We requested nominations for care homes, hospices, hospitals and any care facilities that had gone above and beyond to recognise and protect the Human-Animal Bond. This year’s winner was based in Colombia with the previous year’s joint winners being in Israel and Australia - Fostering Compassion’s reach spreading even further.

We were delighted to launch another two initiatives in 2024 - workshops and activities to support Young Carers and the Fostering Compassion Bursary. We were able to offer a number of bespoke activities for some of East Lothian’s many Young Carers - some of whom are as young as 4 years old. These children shoulder a great deal while caring for other family members and often feel worry and guilt in leaving them, sometimes resulting in them not going to school. There are currently 670 Young Carers registered with our Local Authority but it is thought there are at least 4000 young carers in East Lothian. We aim to provide as much support to them as possible.

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Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

In July we introduced our Bursary Programme and made our first award. This award will go to a vulnerable or care experienced student studying veterinary medicine or animal-based studies, to help them with the cost of living as they complete their studies. Our first Bursary went to a remarkable young man and Ukrainian refugee, who had to flee his homeland, suffering significant trauma after his grandparents were killed during the Russian invasion. He arrived as a refugee in the UK with only a backpack containing his remaining possessions. We are delighted to offer a small level of support to him as he works to improve the lives of animals and continue to foster compassion in as many ways as we can.

During 2024 we began to implement our succession plans as our current CEO begins to move towards retirement. With the assistance of funding from the National Lottery and our unrestricted resources we were able to recruit a Volunteer Development Officer and s Fundraising Development Co-ordinator. Later this year, we will be recruiting a Depute CEO as part of our ongoing future plans.

2024 drew to a close with the resurrection of one of our most popular events - our Christmas reception for the first time since the pandemic. This extremely popular event provides an opportunity for us to thank all our supporters, volunteers, partners and service users. An evening event with guest speakers, refreshments, raffles and therapy animals which is always extremely well attended and a lovely way to conclude another very successful year for Fostering Compassion.

Financial Review

We continue to work hard to raise funds and increase awareness of our work to help diversify income streams. The recruitment of our new Fundraising Development Co-ordinator has been a huge help in taking much of the fundraising pressure off our CEO who in the past has been solely responsible for raising funds. This addition to the team has resulted in a healthy number of funding applications now being submitted on a regular basis to potential funders. We continue to try to raise unrestricted funding to help us continue with our expansion and succession plans allowing us to broaden our service delivery, help many more children and secure the financial future of the charity. We are gradually securing longer term funding over 2 - 3 year periods which helps hugely with forward planning

We continue to try to increase direct debit giving and community fundraising. As the new Volunteer Development Officer continues to recruit more volunteers we will be able to broaden this area of fundraising.

During the accounting period our income totalled £91,454. We received grants from the Robertson Trust (£15,000), the CRH Trust (£25,000) and Radio Forth Cash for Kids (£4,980), The National Lottery (£29,224) and Musselburgh Common Good Fund (£4,500). We received donations totalling £978 and raised £6,349 through fundraising and activities. Some of these funds were restricted and this has been reflected accordingly in the financial statements.

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Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

Our charitable expenditure for the accounting period was £75, 026 which was made up of staff wages, session delivery costs, administrative, running and governance costs. We continue to rent two rooms at Cockburn Halls, Ormiston - our main office at 1d and our Woodland Haven room at 1a which is the perfect setting for workshops, activities, training and meetings.

The Committee has reserves, funds freely available to meet the running costs of the charity of £52,976, taking into account listed liabilities. Lesley Winton was paid on a self-employed basis over the course of the financial period to carry out activities related to the Fostering Compassion project financed by grants as listed and to steer the charity through the aftermath of the pandemic. She is responsible for managing her own tax and national insurance payments.

Reserves Policy

The charity has no real assets and have agree to maintain reserves of £15,000 to allow a cushion of at least 3 month running costs. They have achieved that this year.

Future Plans

Fostering Compassion continued to thrive during 2024 providing services throughout the year for vulnerable and care experienced children aged 3 - 25 years often helping children with nowhere else to turn. We will be continuing to provide our full level of services to Local Authorities, third sector Children’s Charities, schools in areas of socioeconomic

depravation and welcoming self referrals. We are keen to continue developing our activities for East Lothian’s Young Carers given the clear level of need.

We will continue implementing our succession planning to cement the future of Fostering Compassion. Our newly recruited Volunteer Development Officer is working to bring in more volunteers to help us meet the continually increasing demand for our services. We were delighted to get expressions of interest in volunteering from a number of young people who benefitted from our services when they were younger. We have also had applications to volunteer, from caregivers who have been very impressed with the service when they have used it.

We are hopeful that the appointment of a Fundraising Development Co-ordinator, will lead to a more stable flow of income to assist us with longer term planning and we will continue to work to diversify our sources of income so that we become less reliant on Grant funding.

We are looking forward with excitement, to the recruitment of our new Depute CEO as we go through a transition process as part of our succession planning. This will allow our current CEO to gradually pass her knowledge on to her Depute and allow her to move towards full retirement while securing the future of the charity. We will also be continuing to promote the Bob Harvey Award annually for any care facility that goes above and beyond to protect and recognise the importance of the human animal bond.

Moving forward, we will continue to cement our presence in our immediate locality of East and Midlothian offering services and the use of our Woodland Haven room to our local community and children’s services. The concept of ‘The Link’ and the strength and importance of the human-animal bond continue to heavily underpin all our work. Our work in general will continue to promote the benefits of the human-animal bond and care, compassion and empathy for animals and the environment we share.

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Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

We will continue to raise awareness of the work of Fostering Compassion through local and international talks and presentations, information days and stalls, social and mainstream media and our website. We continue to build a strong infrastructure of sessional staff and volunteers to meet the constantly increasing demand for our services. There is a clear need for this as referrals for the beginning of 2024 are coming in thick and fast - receiving 12 in one day and we want to avoid having to turn anyone away.

We maintain and develop our excellent relationships with Edinburgh and Stirling Universities who provide ongoing evaluation of our service to ensure we continue to deliver a first class evidence based project.

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Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

Statement of Receipts and Payments for the year ended 31[st] December 2024

Receipts
Notes
Grants
Donations
Fundraising
Income from Charitable Activities
Gift Aid
3
4
Total Receipts
Payments
Cost of Charitable Activities
Governance
5
6
Total Payment
Surplus / (Deficit)		 Unrestricted
funds
Restricted
fund
Total
funds
2024
Total
funds
2023
10,980
978
6,349
414
3,509
69,224
80,204
978
6,349
414
3,509
44,980
8,299
2,778
2,830
22,230
69,224
91,454
58,887
24,136
1,050
49,809
31
73,945
1,081
62,626
950
25,186
49,840
75,026
63,576
(2,956)
19,384
(16,428)
(4,689)

The notes on page 12-14 form an integral part of these financial statements.

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Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

Notes to the Financial Statements for year ended 31[st] December 2024

2. Basis of Accounting

These accounts have been prepared on the Receipts and payments basis in accordance with the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended)

3. Nature and purpose of funds:

Unrestricted funds are those that may be used at the discretion of the trustees in furtherance of the objects of the charity. Restricted funds may only be used for specific purposes. Restrictions arise when specified by the donor or when funds are raised for specific purposes. This year the charity received the following restricted and unrestricted grants.

Grants

Purpose
Managers Salary
Managers Salary
General
General
General		 Funder
Unrestricted
Restricted Total
2024
Total
2023
Robertson Trust
1,500
15,000 15,000
15,000
CRH Trust
25,000 25,000
25,000
Bauers Radio Forth
Cash for Kids
4,980
4,980
4,980
National Lottery
29,224 29,224
-
East
Lothian
Council
4,500
4,500
-
Total:
10,980
69,224 80,204
44,980

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Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

4. Donations

Purpose Donor Unrestricted Restricted Total Total
2024 2023
General Lady Sarah Ward 5,000
General Individual 978 978 1,364
General Scotland’s Garden scheme 1,435
General East Lothian Golf club 500
Total:
978		 978 8,299

5. Cost of Charitable Activities

Manager Salary
Contracted staff costs
Rent & utilities
Sessional & volunteer hours
Resources & equipment
Website
Phone & broadband fees
Service delivery
Travel & accommodation
Insurance & fees
Donation to fund bursary
Marketing & fundraising costs
Creating compassionate children
Conference costs
Xmas celebration
Total		 Unrestricted
Restricted
Total 2024
Total 2023
47,320
47,320
36,973
560
1,907
2,467
-
12,384
12,384
12,384
2,841
2,841
1,300
959
582
1,541
1,207
1,042
1,042
1,029
810
810
897
2,265
2,265
-
94
94
1,412
1,426
1,426
646
1,000
1,000
-
755
755

4,626
1,887

265

24,136
49,809
73,945
62,626

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Fostering Compassion S.C.I.O Charity No. SC046975

6. Governance
Monitoring and Preparation of
accounts
Independent Examination
Accounts package		 Unrestricted
Restricted
Total 2024
Total 2023
900
900
800
150
150
150
31
31
1,050
31
1,081
950

7. Trustees Remuneration

One Trustee was paid £1,300 over the financial year for administration support and £60 for storing resources for the charity.

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