Helping Us: Why We Need Your Help
"I'm aware of ShareVison, of the ambitions to double the number of people that are reached, and to do more work in the community. It sounds to me ambitious, expensive, and I want to help Living Paintings raise the resources to deliver it."
Rt. Hon. Sir George Young Bt. MP
It is a core principle of Living Paintings that all of our services are provided completely free of charge to all blind and partially sighted people. This means that there are no barriers, particularly financial, to those in need being able to benefit.
Working on an annual budget of about £400,000, at June 2007, and with an amazing team of 120 volunteers our work currently benefits around 7,000 people, a number that grows each week.
Our work benefits people like Tom who has been blind since birth. Now ten years old he is a busy, inquisitive child with a huge love of learning. One of the greatest sorrows for his mother was not being able to share the simple pleasure of reading together. Discovering Living Picture Books was the breakthrough Tom and his mother needed.
Not only do we want to continue to provide our library members with a completely free service and develop new packs for them to explore, but we also want to be able to reach the thousands of blind and partially sighted people in the country who are as yet unaware of our service. Our 5 year development action plan known as ShareVision sets out what we want to achieve.
How much does our charity receive in guaranteed government funding? Nothing. We’re totally dependent on voluntary donations. We are totally dependent upon support from individuals, businesses and grant making trusts, whether it is in the form of donations of time or money. It all makes a real difference to our work.
Find out more about the projects for which we need support.