Real-life Tales of Earning - The Miscarriage Association

Taking the plunge

Ruth Bender Atik has been the National Director of The Miscarriage Association since 1993.  Here she talks about how they have been able to earn income by valuing their expertise, and making the most of their assets.

Ruth says...

I don't know about you, but I find that whenever I think of finances in our organisation, I find that I've a tendency to anxiety and gloom.  Even when I get a sizeable grant, once I've finished being thrilled and delighted, I start worrying about what we'll do when the money runs out.  So it's rather strange for me to be asked to provide an inspirational story of income-generating success at The Miscarriage Association.

When I attended the Sustainable Funding conference last year, I was in my customary "yes but" mode:

yes but that won't work for us,
yes but the Community Fund won't give us development funding,
yes but Lloyds TSB won't give us core funding,
yes but we're different.

Identifying hidden assets

The turning point was when discussion turned to talking about how organisations can consider generating income from within, by identifying hidden assets and about matching these assets with a potential market demand.

It was even suggested that the core mission of an organisation could be served by selling these assets to its user groups.  A few sharp intakes of breath in the audience, and I'd normally be one of them, but (maybe it was the tea), I suddenly found myself thinking 'you know what?  Maybe they're right?' And they were.

The background is this

The Miscarriage Association is a national charity which offers support and information for people affected by miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy or molar pregnancy (another kind of pregnancy loss).  We do this by having a staffed helpline, a national network of support volunteers and a range of leaflets and recorded information on pregnancy loss.  We also work with health professionals to improve standards of care, and with the media to raise awareness of the facts and feelings of pregnancy loss.

We're quite small for a national organisation.  We operate on an annual core budget of £150,000, boosted by one or two project grants.  We have the equivalent of 4 and a half full-time staff and over 200 support volunteers.

As some of you will know, losing a baby in pregnancy can be not only a distressing experience, but also one which creates confusion and anxiety about what has happened and what might happen in the future.

Even in the best and most caring hospitals, verbal explanations and information given at the time of miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy are not well remembered or even understood.  Few hospitals provide written information for patients and those that do, tend to focus just on the immediate post-op practicalities.

So for this reason The Miscarriage Association produce some rather fantastic leaflets which people generally find helpful, because they not only provide answers to many of the questions people have (why do miscarriages happen?  What's a D&C?  When can I try again?) but they also relate to the emotional aspects of losing a baby.

And it's these leaflets, which have turned out to be our, perhaps not completely hidden, but certainly under-valued asset.

Our under-valued asset

We have always sent these leaflets to two groups of people; the individuals who have had the miscarriage, and the hospitals or clinics who have them as patients.  This is part of our core mission - to ensure that people actually get the information and support they need.  We used to send them out free of charge, and then, in a very daring move, we asked hospitals if they would cover the postage costs.

Then when we first got the leaflets professionally printed, rather than photocopied, about 10 years ago, we began discussing whether we should make a charge for leaflets.  We felt very iffy, very uncomfortable.

In terms of providing leaflets to individuals - how could we charge?  Had not people gone through enough trauma without our adding to it?  How could we call ourselves a charity if we charged for helping people? What if they couldn't afford it?

And in terms of hospitals, we were even having to persuade them to provide them to patients when they were free.  If we made a charge and they stopped providing them, we'd have reneged on our core mission.  On the other hand, if we didn't make a charge, we might not have enough money to keep producing the leaflets.

Our two-tier solution

We arrived at a two-tier solution.  Regarding individuals, we decided that we would not make a charge, but we would enclose a slip with each leaflet, which invited a donation and gave a suggested amount.  It may still be begging, but we do pretty well.  We don't track this - ironically it's too costly - but we know that lots of people send the suggested amount, quite a few round the amount up and others don't pay at all.

With the hospitals, we decided (with real anxiety) that charges should match our printing and postage costs.  The anxiety had some foundation. Some hospitals who accepted freebies wouldn't go as far as ordering and paying for them, but gradually coverage improved.

After a couple of years, we increased prices to cover increased print and postage costs - and added just a bit, so we made a small (and I mean small) profit.  We've done this again once or twice and, despite our anxieties, take-up has gradually increased.

So this time last year, our leaflets were paying for themselves - plus a little.  But meanwhile, other costs were mounting and our income was not keeping pace.

Taking it further

So I came to last year's conference, ready to be depressed and listened to what seemed like a not-terribly-charity-minded talk about unique assets and market demand - and I began thinking.  We have something unique - our leaflets.  Hospitals seem to want them - so why not seriously increase our charges for hospital leaflet orders?  Who says we can't make a real profit while still serving the core mission?  The immediate answer was the usual fear-driven one - cash-strapped hospitals can't afford it, they won't pay and patients will be left without leaflets and they'll feel even worse and it'll be all my fault.

But it was a long train journey home and on the way, in a deeply uncharacteristic mood of positive thinking and risk-taking, I decided we should go for it.

I don't work alone.  When I got back, I talked to the staff and I talked to the Trustees.  We looked at the risks (they'll stop ordering) and we looked at the practicalities - what do you say when people ask us to justify increasing the cost of 500 leaflets from £70 to £170?  Regarding the risks - we decided we'd do a trial for three months and then review.  Regarding the practicalities, we rehearsed answers:  "We have had to increase our prices to reflect rising costs", "Up to now, we've been using charity funds to subsidise the real costs of the leaflets".

To our astonishment, it's not been that hard.  We have all tried hard not to apologise too much if asked about increased prices and for the most part hospitals haven't blinked a corporate eyelid.  Orders are as high as ever - heck, some hospitals even carelessly add a nought on to the end of their order forms (which makes you understand why hospitals are cash-strapped).  The one exception was a hospital, which purchased leaflets from a ward-held fund made up from patient donations.  We charge them much less.  We can afford to - we're doing rather well.

A success story

In fact, bottom line stuff, we have moved from leaflet sales making up less than 10% of our core income (this time last year) to their now making over 21% of it. In real money terms, the profit margin has increased from £3,000 in the six months before the big change to over £20,000 in the last six months.

So it really is a success story.  And what's more, we got development funding from the Community Fund and core funding from Lloyds TSB.  Still, I'm glad to say that I still have cause for my customary gloom and anxiety because I think we may have to register for VAT.

But I hear that their leaflets are absolutely free.

Find out more about the organisation at www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk.