CAF Resilience Charities

About Child Accident Prevention Trust

Every week, healthy children are killed, disabled, disfigured or badly injured in accidents that are completely preventable. Children from the poorest families are 13 times more likely to die and three times more likely to be admitted to hospital.

The Child Accident Prevention Trust’s mission is to stop these tragedies, by reducing the numbers of children killed or seriously injured in preventable accidents. The small charity develops engaging educational materials, runs community education campaigns including Child Safety Week, offers online safety advice and uses social media to reach parents directly.

This small national charity has a huge impact and reach in comparison to their size. When it joined the programme it was run by just seven paid staff.

Challenges facing them

In common with many small charities relying on government and local authority contracts to deliver their work, Child Accident Prevention Trust experienced an unexpected collapse in trading income in March 2016.

Staff and trustees responded swiftly by restructuring their staff team and moved to remote working to live within reduced means. However, the one-off costs associated with restructuring ate up reserves, resulting in ongoing cash-flow challenges, and a disproportionate amount of time spent scrutinising finances and struggling to hit short-term targets.

“Our biggest fear is that we would cease to be a going concern and the charity would be forced to close, with the loss of all our work.”

Child Accident Prevention Trust and CAF Resilience

The CEO explained that just 10 weeks in the charity were already seeing benefits from the CAF Resilience programme, which gives “time to step off the treadmill”. The grant, which is paid quarterly in advance, has helped stabilise the charity’s finances and reassure other funders.

They have recruited a new part-time Project Co-ordinator, which has lifted a weight from the CEO’s shoulders and given time to focus on what really matters. Guaranteed funding for a freelance corporate partnerships specialist has helped them to plan forward to diversify income.

“Our wish is that CAF Resilience helps us to stop thinking about short-term survival and be able to focus on our work and beneficiaries in a much more planned way, as we did before things became so difficult for small charities.”

One such advance in the charity’s mission that has been enabled through CAF Resilience is real progress in on their button battery safety campaign, which has enabled them to strengthen links with clinicians and organisations concerned with product safety and standards.

Child Accident Prevention Trust

About Child Accident Prevention Trust

Challenges facing them

“Our biggest fear is that we would cease to be a going concern and the charity would be forced to close, with the loss of all our work.”

Child Accident Prevention Trust and CAF Resilience

“Our wish is that CAF Resilience helps us to stop thinking about short-term survival and be able to focus on our work and beneficiaries in a much more planned way, as we did before things became so difficult for small charities.”

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