Jo’burg Child Welfare response to claims by National Lotteries Board CEO to Parliament

Jo’burg Child Welfare response to claims by National Lotteries Board CEO to Parliament

Johannesburg, 21 October 2011. In a Times Live article titled ‘Conmen, bogus charities take the Lotto for a ride’, the CEO for the National Lotteries Board (NLB), Vevek Ram, is quoted as reporting to parliament that “If you take Child Welfare nationally, they probably receive between R80-million and R100-million from us. Now they believe we should continue funding them. They have stopped completely all their other fundraising.”

A sweeping statement such as this has a negative impact on an organisation such as Jo’burg Child Welfare (JCW), an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation that is extensively involved in fundraising activities to support its provision of direct services to 65 000 children and individuals in the greater Johannesburg area on an annual basis.

Jo’burg Child Welfare’s operating budget for its current financial year is an amount of R35.5-million and 38% of this figure will be provided by government in terms of work sub-contracted to it by government. The balance of R21.5-million needs to be generated through Jo’burg Child Welfare’s own efforts.

“This is a daunting task given the current economic climate,” comments Brian King, Chairman of Jo’burg Child Welfare’s Executive Board “and it is clear that ongoing fundraising activities are of vital importance in enabling Jo’burg Child Welfare to provide services to the children in its care.”

JCW undertakes intensive fundraising activities aimed at corporations, trusts and foundations that play a vital role in JCW being able to meet its child care and protection mandates. Moreover, individual donors, schools, religious institutions and clubs are also relied on for much needed funding.

The Times Live article also quotes “The board has slammed the ‘dependency syndrome’ of large organisations, saying that many had become entirely dependent on lotto funding and had stopped raising funds from other sources.”

JCW cannot possibly become dependent on lotto funding and discontinue fundraising activities for the following reasons:

• Between the years of 2001 and 2007, JCW received R4.56-million from the NLB, no monies were received during 2008, in 2009 R2.5-million was granted and then from 2010 to February 2011 and amount of R8.4-million was granted by the NLB. In March 2011, JCW applied for funding and an amount of R1-million was approved by the distributing agency. Given the historical amounts received, combined with the strong case JCW is able to present in terms of funding required, this decision was appealed. The original, simplistic allocation decision was maintained and JCW is to receive this amount from the NLB shortly. This means that since the inception of the Lottery in 2001 until today, JCW has received R16.5-million in total from the NLB. Whilst JCW is indeed grateful to the NLB for funding received, the lack of consistency in terms of amounts received in relation to amounts applied for, as well as the sometimes extended delays in receiving grants means that as an organisation we should not rely on Lotto funding.
• In addition, when one considers the total funding received to date over a period of ten years, the amount of R16.5-million would not cover our operational shortfall after government income for even one year.

“Jo’burg Child Welfare’s fundraising activities are fundamental to its ongoing existence and we feel the comments that have been made gloss over the realities of the challenges and problems faced by organisation such as Jo’burg Child Welfare that through direct service delivery can be viewed as a vital component of our society.” concludes King.