Law firm's business expertise helps raise funds for homeless charity
Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:05 GMT
LONDON (TrustLaw) - A British charity supporting single homeless people raised 120,000 pounds ($178,000) in three months thanks to an innovative campaign launched with the pro bono help of law firm Slaughter and May.
In November the charity, Crisis, invited donors to buy Urban Investor Units - or stakes in its Skylight centres, which run classes and workshops for the homeless and help them find work.
The fundraising is modelled on a company share offer and was advertised in the Financial Times newspaper and other business publications.
But instead of paying the investors a dividend, Crisis promises them a so-called social return: it says that on average each pound invested and spent on the Skylight centres equals a 3.92-pound saving to the public purse.
"In the UK, this is an entirely novel approach to fundraising by a charity," Slaughter and May said in a briefing.
The law firm used its expertise in private-sector share issues to help Crisis draft the documentation that could be sent to potential donors.
"We frankly would not have been able to do that without the support of Slaughter and May because we have no experience in doing that kind of issuing," Leslie Morphy, the head of Crisis, told TrustLaw.
By February Crisis had sold about 100 units, at 1,200 pounds each, to about 30 wealthy individuals, she added. A spokesman for the charity said it could not provide more up-to-date information.
The social return has been calculated by consultancy Oxford Economics based on the Skylight centres' successes, both achieved and expected. Examples include helping homeless people find work or housing, or obtain a qualification.
"We can be very transparent about what the results are," Morphy said.
Crisis plans to send investors reports every six months on what their money has bought and on the Skylight centres' progress in meeting targets. Investors also receive some benefits, for example priority invitations to the charity's arts events.
In this first stage of the fundraising, the money invested will be used either to develop and run both existing and planned Skylight centres, or fund exclusively the construction of a new centre in Birmingham.
In the next stages, planned over the next four years, investors will be able to support the development of four more new centres.
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