Blind in Business was founded in 1992 by three blind graduates. Despite having good degrees, they initially found it difficult to gain work, due to misconceptions and wariness from employers about vision impairment. The organisation was set up to help other blind and vision impaired graduates to compete equally with sighted candidates for good jobs, by providing help, support and training, and by removing barriers to success.
Now the charity runs an Employment Service, which this year helped 60 blind or vision impaired people into good jobs. The organisation also runs a Pathways Service, which this year provided training and support to 200 teenagers and their parents as the young people prepare to enter the world of work. The organisation also often works with employers, schools and colleges to support blind and vision impaired people finding and moving into their first job.
This long term capacity building funding will be used to cover core organisational costs and increase the sustainability of the organisation by:
Making it possible to continue existing services whilst adapting to a tough external environment, allowing resources to be moved around as needed and increasing capacity to do more, e.g. employer relationships. This is a growing need, with employer practices often not aligning with rhetoric once someone is in post and lots of employers require practical advice. The security of this funding would also help ensure future projects are delivered without putting pressure on core costs, which is particularly important as many funders will only fund costs related directly to service delivery.
Increasing fundraising capacity, with a particular focus on exploring different models, e.g. membership fees. Despite small amounts of funding from organisations like Children in Need, securing funding for core costs has been incredibly tough and is getting tougher, with several well known funders closing. It is unlikely that investing in a corporate fundraiser would break even, especially given likely salaries for top quality fundraisers, so this funding would allow the exploration of other options
Increasing output across all services by 10% over the next 2/3 years. In practice this would mean assisting more blind and vision impaired people to secure their first job and providing training for more teenagers.
Attracting additional funding. Experience suggests that having significant multiyear funding from a credible organisation like Fight for Sight would help as a lever to attract further funding.