Sponsor a Help Finder van
About us...
Help Finder are a non-profit based in Liverpool that supports the most vulnerable in society, supporting people with issues relating to homelessness, low incomes, mental health and domestic violence. We support babies all the way up to people at the end of their life.
We’ve been featured on BBC (Radio Merseyside, Panorama, CBBC), ITV News (National Segment), Metro News UK, Liverpool Echo + more.
In short...
Help Finder needs a van to help us support the most vulnerable in society. We're being offered some amazing donations which require pick-up, but we're struggling to take them in as we're having to use a volunteer's van which isn't very fair on him!
We are, therefore, looking for a number of van sponsors to help us with the purchase/lease as well as all the costs involved because as we all know, sadly the costs don't stop after we've got one
Our story...
Help Finder was originally called Food Bank Finder and born in December 2019 out of frustration that a current food bank mobile app charges food banks to help them.
Not content with this, we set out to make our own, with our simple to use Food Bank Finder web app available here.
We all know what happened in early 2020. Because of the p******c, we received a phone call from somebody on behalf of North West Ambulance Service saying they needed PPE urgently. And as if by magic, we were suddenly involved in PPE - bulk buying on behalf of, and donating to, organisations all around the country ranging from our much-loved NHS, hospices, care homes, high risk individuals and private organisations - the profits of which we were able to put back into the work we do. The PPE work was full-on, with sleepless nights, working with organisations around the world to get PPE to those who need it in this country.
It's through this work that truly kick started us and resulted in appearances on national news outlets including Metro UK and BBC Panorama.
After the PPE drought started to tidy up, we started work on our Christmas Appeal, with which we were able to support so many people. We sent families away on well needed breaks and we started taking in donations from the public and businesses of both cash and items that could be used for parcels, to be distributed to people all over the spectrum ranging from full homeless to homed but require immediate help. The response from this was incredible and far more than we expected! It was truly amazing to see how much people were coming together to support one another.
Our Sunday Service started so we could distribute the parcels we put together for homeless people during our Christmas Appeal. At its basis, it's an outreach service where we provide hot/cold drinks & food, clothes, essentials and so on to help people get by. To this day, we're standing on Church Street every Sunday, in all weather, to help those who need it.
The Sunday Service offering resulted in us receiving a constant stream of amazing donations and especially during COVID-19 with charity shops shut, we were and remain top of people's lists for which we're forever grateful. To store everything, we moved into a 150 square foot unit. Within a week it was too small, so we moved into a 250 square foot unit. 2 weeks... again too small. We realised this was going to get boring, fast - not to mention having to move everything to different units every few weeks. So we got to work on a proper unit, as in a warehouse. Enter Peel L&P, who after months of talks, they donated us a fantastic 7,000 square foot unit which sits on the King Edward Estate in Liverpool.
The space donated to us by Peel has allowed us to expand even further - since we moved in we've been donated over 1.5 million units of PPE. We've been donated a huge amount of food, furniture, white goods, clothes, books, toiletries - and it's all down to amazing people like you
We're now starting our Parcel service where we put tailored together parcels of food, drinks, clothing, furniture, etc based on an individual's own issues and make sure everything gets used to its best.
To do this, we're running our own service as well as working with some fantastic organisations such as Liverpool's Whitechapel Centre, so we can help re-start people's lives for the better. We're also working with a company called Prospero Teaching, who are helping us get our food parcel & collection service into schools that we're not already speaking to.
Up until now, we've been using a volunteer's van - and one of our main partners, Wrightspace. Sadly the demand we're now receiving means it's not fair or practical to rely on him and his van constantly and we want to give Wrightspace's van a break.
To ensure we have longevity, we need our own van - this will ensure we can pick up and drop off to our heart's content and help the most people.
Because that's what it's all about, isn't it.
Helping people.
We are Help Finder.
Who you'll be joining...
We aren't a run-of-the-mill non profit, and we have very well known partners to show that.
We're supported by the likes of...
This is alphabetical, to be fair!
and many more great organisations and people like you and me.
These organisations and more trust us to be attached to their name, and it's a connection we respect and love.
What will I get out of this?...
Every donation of any size will be publicised as long as you've not donated anonymously, and we'll be using the public details you leave on the website to create a number of thank you posts as well as a PR campaign through some of our media partners.
Larger donors (possibly over £750, this is yet to be decided) can have their logo placed on our van to promote the fact you are supporting a small non-profit, and really playing a massive part in helping us to help those in need.
We'll be in touch to request artwork as long as you've left your contact details. Please ensure you've got a high-resolution image with a transparent background (this means nothing around the actual logo - such as a white background) such as a PNG, but a vector (e.g. AI or SVG) is preferred.
In the event the colour scheme of your logo doesn't work with the design we go with, we may tweak the colours slightly, but we'll send a proof to every organisation before the design is approved.
If you don't have a logo, we can work something out - and if you don't want your logo/name on the van, that's fine too!
There are some things such as low quality logos, swear words, etc. that we can't put on the van and the final say is ours. If this is the case, we'll be in touch to discuss other options.
Some more information...
Please, please! If possible, please tick 'Pay the fees' so that we can put as much money possible towards a van and not card processing charges!
While we accept card on this Donation form, some donors may wish to pay in other ways e.g. cheque or bank transfer. We'd also recommend this for donations of over £1,000.
For more ways on donating, please email dom@helpfinder.org.uk and we'll be in touch ASAP. If you want to sit down and chat before handing over your money so you know that it's going to the right place, we're more than happy do to that and completely understand your reasoning. Just say the words and we'll organise a real face-to-face meeting. Zoom is so 2020!
At present, we are only a CIC (Community Interest Company) which means any donation is sadly not tax deductible. We have applied for full Charity Status (application went in 3rd February) but there are some delays at the Charity Commission currently due to the number of applications they've received over the last year.
If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Thanks for reading
Team Help Finder
Dominic Lipscombe - LinkedIn
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