As yet Gardening Leave receives no statutory funding so all our income is from donations, whether from grant-making trust and foundations, Service charities or private individuals who are interested in, and care about our work.
Now that we are in our 4th year of operation, our funding requirements have changed. When I started Gardening Leave, it was just me and my battered old Passat estate then Poppyscotland generously funded the purchase of a Land Rover Discovery and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo kindly covered her running costs for the first year.
As we welcomed more veterans to Gardening Leave in Year 2, and the cost of running the charity began to rise, we recruited Pamela Smith to be our full-time Horticultural Therapist so that I could concentrate on raising the money to keep the wheels on – a perennial problem for fledgling charities!
We have now strengthened our administration team with the appointment of Keith Watson our Communications Officer who is based at our Head Office at Auchincruive and gives Evelyn McGill our Admininstration & Finace Officer much needed support.
As the number of Gardening Leave projects grows and with it the requirement for a Horticultural Therapist and Assistant at each of those projects, the salary bill is increasing exponentially…
Now that the Friends of Gardening Leave is up and running we are hoping that they will be able to help us in our fund raising endeavours.
