Fund raising campaigns
Benefactors Dinner
Friday, 26 January 2007
In November 2006, we held a Benefactors meeting to look at that year's shortfall of £40,000.The appeal, launched by the Benefactors Council and co-ordinated by Dr Ramesh Shamdasani, ably assisted by Kamlesh Patel, Jamin Patel, Harish I. K. Patel, and Upendra Kalan raised £41,500.
The extra £1500 has been put into a corpus account that is being built up to protect against future deficits.
Our Board of Governors and Benefactors Council would like to thank all our friends who have made this appeal such a wonderful success.
Annual Revenue Campaign, 2007-2011
With 2006 taken care of, we have to take a longer view and avoid future shortfalls. To that end we began our Annual Revenue Campaign. The aim of this campaign is to raise funding of £250,000 per year for five years (2007-11). This will enable us to make the essential academic and administrative appointments necessary to maintain our educational ethos and develop our ability to facilitate gifted students and scholars.
Although only launched in Devember 2006, this campaign, headed by Lord Dholakia, has reached 45% of its target. Launching the campaign, Lord Dholakia said: "In 2006 the OCHS received official recognition from Oxford University. Now is the time for us to get behind the Centre financially. The Centre is something we can all be truly proud of and it can flourish, if we support it."
Website: Friends and Benefactors
Of course, this being the 21st century, no fund-development is complete without website support.
We've recently introduced a Donate page on our website. This is very useful for friends who would like to support us with one-off donations, big or small.
More importantly, we are revamping the Friends and Benefactors section of the site. The aim of the new section will be to acknowledge our debt of gratitude to our friends and benefactors and to show how vital a contribution they are making to society through their generous support. We aim to have this section live by mid-February.
Our friends and benefactors are linked into an important knowledge base of scholars and experts, and have access to our library, public events, and more intimate gatherings. As supporters of global education and understanding they deserve public recognition of their support.