The Rosemary Appeal has now closed after reaching its fundraising goal of £5.5m for the new Greenham Trust Wing at West Berkshire Community Hospital.
The appeal had received support from local grant-giving organisations, collaborating to back this vital fundraising project by offering grants and match funding via The Good Exchange charitable giving platform.
And local people are already benefitting from enhanced care within the community.
The Enborne Unit (for renal dialysis) and the Rosemary Centre (for cancers and other therapies, advice and support) are fully up and running, as is a new CT scanner.
As the new facilities are now fully funded and operational, the Newbury and Thatcham Hospital Building Trust charity and the Newbury Cancer Care Trust are closing the appeal and turning their attention to developing new facilities at the hospital, including new MRI scanners.
“There are tens of thousands of charities in this country all in competition for money and we are a relatively-small charity and we didn’t have a hope of competing with the national charities” said Robert Tayton, secretary of the Newbury & Thatcham Hospital Building Trust.
“By using The Good Exchange, we have received £1.84m from 1,039 donations from members of the public, of which £1.9m was matched by grant funders through the platform”.
David Ball, chairman of the Newbury & District Cancer Care Trust, added: “The task of applying to all the potential funders would have been a full-time job. But, working through The Good Exchange has made the administration side of fundraising so much easier. We haven’t had to have an army of organisers managing the administration processes involved in collecting the donations, and the £107,000 of Gift Aid, or getting the money raised into the charity’s bank account. They’ve done all that for us.”
The Rosemary Appeal takes its name from Rosemary Rooke, who donated land to the Newbury and Thatcham Hospital Building Trust (NTHBT) in her will.
When the land was sold, the money was managed by NTHBT and used to build the new community hospital.
The project was designed by KPW Architects and EDTS.
