A word from Chris Sadler, our CEO, as we face the pressure of the cost of living crisis:

“You may have seen we have been in the news recently surrounding the pressure that the cost of living crisis is putting on charities like ours. We have been approached by several of the region’s media outlets, including television, print, online and radio, to give comments about how these financial pressures are impacting Dove House. I wanted to make sure you, our staff and volunteers, supporters and stakeholders had the chance to hear the full details of how we are dealing with this crisis.

Firstly, and most importantly, I want to stress that we have worked hard to build a robust funding model and financial resilience as we come out of the Coronavirus pandemic, and so Dove House is not facing the risk of closure.

We are experiencing significant costs pressures across all areas of the organisation and are estimating that energy supplies and general levels of inflation will have a substantial impact, with costs increasing by around £300,000 in the current year. Sadly, we are now used to operating in times of uncertainty and meeting rising costs, so we are confident if we continue to work hard, we will meet these challenges in the future.

Over the last few months particularly we have seen changes to our regular fundraising activities – there has been an increase in cancellations of direct debits for donations and lottery membership, the amount and type of stock being donated to our shops is changing, and sign ups are lower than hoped for some events. We are having to continually evaluate and adapt how we will match levels of funding with levels of expenditure over the coming months.

We only receive around 10% in statutory funding and so any material drop in income from our fundraising activities will have to be factored into our plans for the future. This will could mean that some of our aspirations and developments will be put on hold until there is a more stable financial landscape where we have more certainty over our long-term funding and expenditure.

One thing is for certain and that’s our commitment to maintain and sustain our current core services, to ensure we provide the ongoing care and support to all those who need our services. Currently we are starting to open up more of our Inpatient Unit beds and are beginning to bring back some of our clinics and groups after reducing many of our services during the pandemic.

Everyone at Dove House is passionate about providing specialist care to adults in Hull and East Yorkshire facing the most difficult days. We want to be helping more of our local community and know it is only with their support that we can strive to do this.”