11/06/2026
This is a little bit long but incredibly important – please, please take a few minutes to read. Four days ago, I put up a fundraising post asking for help. From that post we've had $1,835 donated by some incredibly generous people, plus the $1,300 we already had in the bank. We've had people sponsor Care Boxes, make donations, and share our post. Every single donation means the world to us. Thank you so much. But I'm going to be completely honest. We’re still in trouble. Right now, we need to find around $8,000 over the next four weeks just to cover our basic running costs.
This month alone, our petrol bill came in at $831.29 and that doesn’t include the cost of the hospital parking tickets which are around $250 per month. Multiple attempts to get free or reduced parking have been declined.
Our weekly bills are $1,930.61. That's just rent, phone, petrol, car insurance and my salary. It doesn't include memory making supplies, Care Box contents, hospital parking, printing, software, computer systems, office costs, or all the other things needed to keep Baby Loss NZ running.
Many people don't realise that our Care Boxes alone cost us around $23,000 a year to provide. That would broken down to $445 per week. The casting materials we use to create hand and foot castings cost around $66,000 a year - $1,270 per week. These aren't extras. These are the very things that families receive when we walk alongside them through the loss of their baby.
To save money, I've dug out some of our old Care Boxes with the previous logo on them. They're smaller than what we use now and not ideal, but right now every dollar counts.
We've also had nine grant applications declined recently. We continue applying for grants wherever we can because we don't want to rely solely on donations. Unfortunately, funding is becoming harder and harder to secure everywhere we look.
I don't often talk about my salary, but I think it's important to be transparent. I work around 80 hours a week for Baby Loss NZ. About half of those hours are unpaid volunteer hours. If my salary can't be paid, I'll need to find another job. If that happens, Baby Loss NZ simply can't continue operating in the way it does now.
That means families missing out on Care Boxes.
Families missing out on castings. Families missing out on memory making. Families missing out on support at one of the most devastating times of their lives.
So today, I'm asking you to consider becoming a Financial Friend. A Financial Friend sets up an automatic payment of your choice. To be eligible to claim back your tax it needs to be from $5 a week. Less than the cost of a coffee. It's those regular donations that keep the lights on, pay the bills, buy the supplies, and allow us to continue saying "yes" when a family needs us.
Financial Friends can completely change our future. If Baby Loss NZ has ever helped you, your family, a friend, or if you simply believe bereaved families deserve this support, please consider joining us. Because right now, we genuinely need help. And if we're going to continue supporting the hundreds of families who need us each year, we need that help sooner rather than later.
We are a registered charity (CC32638) so domains are tax deductible.
Our account for the FF donations is Baby Loss NZ 06-0991-0155088-03 with your name and 'Friend' as reference and code. Then flick us a PM with your address, phone and email so we can add you to the database.
If you’ve made it to the end of this - thank you for reading. Thank you for caring. And thank you for standing beside us. Pictured here with permission, is beautiful Aimee who I spent a really special time with, making memories with precious baby Roman.
