Te Omanga Hospice applauds fundraising innovation

MEDIA RELEASE
Tuesday 26 August

Te Omanga Hospice applauds an “everybody wins” innovation in fund raising

Te Omanga Hospice, in its 29th year, is hailing an innovative idea from CharityLife, which will provide the hospice with ongoing funds.

In what is believed to be a world first, CharityLife is offering its clients the ability to make a donation equal to 10 percent of their life insurance premium to the hospice of their choice, at no cost to the client.

Te Omanga’s chief executive, Biddy Harford, says it costs $6m a year to run the hospice.

“We support about 560 patients and their families each year and 50 percent of my time is spent maintaining relationships with the community and keeping the profile of the hospice paramount in people’s minds so they think of Te Omanga when they choose to donate.

“The trouble is that every year we are out asking people to donate to the hospice, holding street days, rattling collection boxes. We are concerned about the possible growth in donor fatigue and over the last few years we have tried to find innovative ways to raise money to counter this.

“That is where CharityLife’s fantastic idea comes in.”

Mark Ogden of CharityLife, says the company recognised that the work of the hospice is underwritten by fund raising which has to be done “every single week”. “This is our way of making a real contribution to the excellent work they do,” he says.

CharityLife foregoes commission and a renewal stream normally paid to banks, brokers or advisers. This is shared between the customer and the hospice, providing a lifetime discount for the client and a donation for the hospice every month the client pays their premium. People taking out policies can choose which hospice they want the donation to go to.

“Everybody wins with this,” Mr Ogden says. “All profit CharityLife may get will be channelled back into the community through the CharityLife Trust.”

Biddy Harford believes the idea will be very successful. “Hospice cuts across all demographics and it is amazing how many people have had some contact with a hospice in their life. I think people will be very interested in this.”

Mrs Harford also says the initiative shown by CharityLife is very much in keeping with the growing trend of companies to attend to the “triple bottom line” – showing the public that the company has a commitment to support the community.

“I applaud Mark Ogden of CharityLife and Tony McCombs from Asteron for such a brilliant idea. It will supply us with a stream of sustainable funding that we desperately need.”

ENDS

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