Book Trade Charity & Bookbinders Charitable Society announce merger
Melanie May | 12 December 2016 | News
The Book Trade Charity and The Bookbinders Charitable Society are merging to ‘to provide more effective and efficient services to a wider range of beneficiaries’.
The charities are two of the oldest in the book trade. The Book Trade Charity (formerly The Book Trade Benevolent Society) was founded in 1837, and provides grants to over 120 individuals and families each year; offering regular monthly support and one-off welfare grants for a range of issues.
A merger in 2015 with the Matthew Hodder Charitable Trust saw it widen its scope from purely welfare grants to also offering education, training and encouragement to help younger people enter the trade, as well as supporting initiatives encouraging the appreciation of books and reading among younger people.
The two mergers provide a significant boost for The Book Trade Charity’s financial position, chief executive David Hicks told UK Fundraising. Just over half of its funds currently come from rent on its housing stock of (pre-merger) 35 units, while donations, events including book sales, and legacies make up most of the remainder.
The Bookbinders Charitable Society was founded in 1830, supporting past employees from bookbinding, book production and allied trades as a Friendly Society Benevolent Fund. It hopes that the merger with BTBS will enable it to expand its reach to help more people who qualify for support and assistance, and to help more people into a career in bookbinding.
Hicks said:
“We recognise that there are many eligible people who have worked in the trade, but do not realise that these funds could be helping with the very real problems, both financial and housing-related, that they are facing. We hope that with the combined strength of these charities will enable more individuals in need to be reached; they have served the industries, now it is our turn to help when they encounter difficult personal circumstances.”
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.