Cash crisis for LifeLine

YET another vital community organisation finds itself in a financial predicament, as LifeLine Zululand battles to pay staff salaries this month.

Even the visits undertaken by counsellors are being curtailed because there is no money for petrol.

This despite the fact that the counselling organisation has to date submitted no fewer than 41 project funding applications.

‘We don’t ask for handouts; we are more than capable of working for our money,’ said LifeLine Zululand Director Sue Stephenson.

‘It takes a huge amount of administrative effort to submit these applications for income-generating activities as each funder has its own requirements and formats. Putting proposals together is an onerous task.’

Stephenson listed a number of reasons LifeLine is battling to keep its head above water.

‘Emotional wellness is a hard commodity to ‘sell’, and its significance is not prioritised despite the impact of one’s emotional, mental, physical and spiritual status.

‘It is only when a business realises that a staff member is not coping and their work performance is affected, that our services are sought.

‘Emotional wellness is quite far down the bottom of the list with a lot of local corporates and the donations that we do get, for which we are very grateful, do not cover our core operating costs,’ said Stephenson.

‘The ‘man in the street’ always presumes we are funded for our basic services by government, which we are not.

‘Funders cannot be taken for granted as they often re-prioritise and re-focus, and they prefer to enter into partnerships with other funders.

‘We are having to learn on the job with regards to finding funders outside our area and outside the country.’

LifeLine Zululand’s last Lotto application was rejected due to a technicality but this has been re-submitted.

In the meantime the outlook is, ironically, depressing and the local LifeLine Board is investigating every fund-raising and project opportunity.

‘We have served the community faithfully for 25 years and want to continue doing so.

‘Support for our forthcoming black tie dinner/dance on 24 October would be a good start and we will shortly be approaching companies and the public on this.

‘Any potential funder or company wanting to use our multitude of professional services can contact us on 035 7892472.’