The Nitty Gritty

Our particular funding need can be summarised simply:

we need an additional $1,000 a month, or $12,000 a year from generous donors to cover the expected cost of maintaining chaplaincy services in Wellington hospitals.

In fact, the overall cost of maintaining and supporting chaplaincy in Wellington hospitals is around $144,000 a year. Central funds, including the 50% Ministry of Health component and our share of the contributions channeled via the Interchurch Hospital Chaplaincy Trust Appeal cover around $108,000 of this. This leaves a shortfall of around $36,000 a year,(or an average call of $3,000 a month) to be met by local contributions. The tricky bit is that the calls occur monthly; we need to have available sufficient money, each and every month – and thanks to our adept Treasurer, David Underwood, so far we have done just that. In the Wellington Hospital Chaplaincy Trust area we are helped by having a group of “major donors”, (each contributing more than $1,000 a year) adding up to $24,000 a year. It is the remaining $12,000 that is our great concern.

WHCT is fortunate in having the benefit of sufficient reserves to cover, at the moment, most worst-case scenarios. These reserves were created from the efforts of a small group headed by Jim Rowe and Brian Cunningham, dedicated to the survival of the chaplaincy service. A portion of these reserves, tagged to specific needs, is not necessarily available at all times. Trustee preference, of course, is to continue to meet each year’s needs from its yearly income, which means, in effect, raising a further $12,000 a year.

Accordingly

The trust has decided to make its annual financial appeal early in each New Year to be certain of the funds to maintain the service. This timing will also effectively separate its specifically Wellington-based request from that of the national ICHC appeal in September.

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