Due to circumstances beyond Bridge2Aid’s control, the charity needs to raise at least £50,000 before the end of March 2014 to ensure its vital work can continue.
In the past few months, two things have happened resulting in a significant financial challenge for us.
Firstly, Bridge2Aid (B2A) was recently the victim of a sophisticated financial fraud in Tanzania, orchestrated by an organised crime ring. Neither the police investigation nor our own review has shown any link with the B2A team. High quality counterfeit cheques were used the day after a grant payment was received to extract a large sum of money illegally. We have taken swift action to tighten procedures and continue to pursue the funds taken, plus we have switched accounts to a new international bank.
Secondly, we’re facing a sudden, and large (70%), drop in funds from our main corporate sponsor, who dramatically announced at the end of 2013 that they would be slashing Bridge2Aid’s final payment of a three-year grant due to a large fall in their own profits. They have done this with all the projects they fund.
These circumstances mean that instead of starting 2014 with a low reserve, which we could manage, we now have a significant challenge to deliver treatment and training programmes in the first part of the year.
Our current challenge
We need to raise at least £50,000 before the end of March 2014, without which there is a very real threat to our work, including our plans of delivering vital emergency dentistry – and all-important pain relief – to more than 3 million people over the next 3 years.
So we are asking you, please, to donate NOW if you can, to help us continue the vital work that so many people have kindly contributed to over the past 10 years, and make a life free from dental pain a reality for communities in need.
How you can help
We are looking for individual and private donations in units of £40, £80 and £100 that, with the addition of Gift Aid, will give us £50, £111 and £133 in total to replace the missing funds and reduced grant, enabling the planned programmes and pain relief for millions to go ahead.
In addition, we would be most grateful if you could share our message and need with your friends and family, as well as your community as a whole, to help support us in this undertaking. If you need help organising this, please do not hesitate to contact us at B2A (www.bridge2aid.org).
Bridge2Aid faces this huge endeavour with the courage of our convictions and the confidence that our many friends will gather around us and offer their time, talents and funds.
You can make a donation in the following ways:
- By visiting the following page on our website: www.bridge2aid.org/urgentappeal
- Online via our Justgiving page at www.justgiving.com/B2Aurgentappeal
- Online direct to our bank, RBS, sort code: 16.16.20, account no. 10072646*
- By cheque made payable to ‘Bridge2Aid’ and posted to Bridge2Aid, Well House, The Chipping, Wotton-Under-Edge, Gloucestershire. GL12 7AD
- By calling 0845 8509877
*please notify This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. when donating online directly to our account please
We have a dental community of 50,000 in the UK. If 1,000 of those people are able to make a donation of £40, plus gift aid, we will reach our target. Please can you help us in this time of need?