Gifts of Time and Money

In the UK, the 1^st – 12^th June is designated ‘Volunteers’ Week’ (www.volunteersweek.org/- 12 days maybe seems like only a week when you are having fun volunteering!) and, like so many organisations, SURVIVE-MIVA could not function as effectively as it does without the support of volunteers. Thank you one and all!

The main volunteer role at SURVIVE-MIVA (although occasionally we have office volunteers doing administrative tasks) is that of ‘Speaker’. We have about 50 people (dotted across England, Wales and Scotland) in this role, which involves making appeals at Sunday Masses in Catholic Parishes. We know, from the feedback we receive, that our volunteers gain a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment from making appeals and visiting different parishes, but we also know that they put up with many inconveniences (including early starts on a Sunday morning!) as they inspire others to engage with our work and raise funds for the charity.

In 2015 there were around 250 parish appeals for SURVIVE-MIVA and our Speakers must, therefore, have addressed several thousand people in the year. As a result of their work many people: signed up to receive our twice-yearly magazine, Awareness; prayed for SURVIVE-MIVA’s work and that of our overseas’ beneficiaries; and made a donation to support the Association.  The income we received in 2015 from Parish appeals was just over £115,500, which is approximately 19% of total income for that year.

An additional source of income from parish appeals comes from the Gift Aid scheme. Our Speakers encourage any UK tax payers in the congregation to Gift Aid their donations and this really does make a difference to the Association’s income each year. During ‘Volunteers’ Week’ we submitted a Gift Aid claim to the Inland Revenue (amounting to over £18,000 for donations received over 6 months) and this  prompted me to look again at the draft version of SURVIVE-MIVA’s  Trustees’ Report & Accounts for 2015 (draft because it has yet to be approved by members and, hopefully, they will do this at SURVIVE-MIVA’s Annual General Meeting on 23^rd June) to remind myself of the Gift Aid income we will receive for donations made during 2015: the Gift Aid scheme yielded £40,531 for SURVIVE-MIVA in 2015, which is 7% of total income in 2015.

The total funds transferred overseas in 2015 amounted to some £286,731, which means that we could say that 40% of the vehicles funded by SURVIVE-MIVA in 2015 were paid for by appeals' income and 14% of the vehicles were paid for by Gift Aid income! 

You can learn more about:

a) being a SURVIVE-MIVA Speaker here: www.survive-miva.org/Involved.htm

b) Gift Aid here: www.survive-miva.org/downloads/DonationFormWeb2016.pdf

As 'Volunteers' Week' in the UK ended, 'Laudato Si Week' began (an international event running from 12 - 19 June 2016). 'Laudato Si Week' has been set up to mark the first anniversary of the release (on 18th June 2015) of Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si': On Care for our Common Home. In this encyclical the Pope calls on us to take action and, if you would like any ideas on how you can get involved, you can find out more at: www.catholicclimatemovement.global/act/.

One of the actions on the Catholic Climate Movement website is signing a petition to be sent to local, national and international leaders, calling on them to honour commitments made at the Climate Summit in Paris in December 2015 (representatives of the governments of more than 190 countries attended). The text of the petition is:

Climate change affects everyone, but especially the poor and most vulnerable people among us. Inspired by Pope Francis and the Laudato Si' encyclical, we call on you to drastically cut carbon emissions to keep the global temperature rise below the dangerous 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold, and to aid the world's poorest in coping with climate change impacts.

I’ve just signed the petition and invite you to do the same – surely a good use of our time?

Theresa Codd
Assistant Director (Development), SURVIVE-MIVA