23/09/2024
Statement from the Trustees of You Raise Me Up:
As a Board of Trustees, we are aware of our responsibilities to our beneficiaries and our employees.
We are aware that the recent announcement of the closure of the coffee shop and support centre on Polegate High Street has come as a shock to many families and the community.
The core and purpose of the charity is to support families who lose a young adult aged 16 - 25 years through counselling, support groups and financial aid.
The closure of the coffee shop has not been an easy decision and one we have been working hard to prevent for nearly two years.
When the senior leadership of the charity changed in June 2023, the trustees uncovered evidence of financial mismanagement. In the months since, with the support of the employees we have worked hard to rectify this position.
In previous years we have been the beneficiary of successful grant and funding streams which are simply increasingly harder to access, are making less available and are awarding lower amounts.
The coffee shop and support centre has had to trade as a business and the intention was for the surplus to be reinvested into the operation of the charity and the continuation of the provision of the coffee shop and support centre.
The reality is that the coffee shop and support centre has always run at an operational loss since it was opened.
This has previously been subsidised by local traders offering their services for free or at a significantly discounted rate. For this we are very grateful. It has also been subsidised in the past through grants and funding successfully procured from sources across the UK.
Unfortunately, in the last four years, funding and grants have diminished as there are less opportunities available, and the size of the support they offer has been decreasing. We have not been successful in securing grants to cover these costs.
We have not lessened the intensity of our search for suitable funding streams or lessened our range of fundraising activities.
Alongside that, the cost of operation has been increasing. A number of services required to operate the coffee shop have increased, most significantly the cost of gas and electric, and this has added pressure to the finances.
The charity has made a significant number of internal changes that will have to remain confidential for legal reasons but rest assured that we have sought professional advice at every step to ensure we maintain the integrity of the charity and its founders.
The closure of the coffee shop and support centre was not an easy decision and we have been battling to counter this for the last 18 months. In the end, the trustees had to make a commercial decision to secure the future of the core service of charity.
It is a decision that none of us wanted to make, however not making this decision would have put the whole charity at risk.
We are incredibly thankful to our staff at the coffee shop and we are saddened that we have lost them as employees. We are saddened that we will not be able to continue to serve our loyal customers with coffee, cake and a safe place to meet their friends.
The decision to convert the premises to an office with our remaining employees, gives us the opportunity to retain the memory tree of the loved ones of our families and is the most cost-effective option to continue to operate the charity.
As with charities the length and breadth of the country, You Raise Me Up is entirely funded by donations. We receive no statutory funding despite getting regular referrals from other statutory bodies who cannot fulfil the needs of our families.
We are launching an appeal to help us continue to offer the support for which we were set up. In order to save the immediate future of the charity please consider joining and supporting our campaign https://justgiving.com/campaign/helpyouraisemeup.
We are all truly saddened that it has come to this but we hope that with local support we will be able to survive this period and grow back stronger.
