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Local Hero

Have you got what it takes to be a Local Hero?

This April, Localgiving is celebrating all the fantastic fundraisers who put themselves out to raise money on behalf of a local charity. From marathons to bungee jumps; sponsored silences to fire walks.

To help give a boost to their efforts, Localgiving will award £5,000 in prizes to the causes supported by the top 20 fundraisers in April. Participants will be ranked according to the number of unique online donors from whom they secure sponsorship throughout the month. The top fundraiser will secure a prize of £1,000 for their chosen cause!

In 2015, the top prize was awarded to Ability Dogs 4 Young People thanks to their fundraiser, Mick – who secured donations from 157 unique donors by jumping out of a plane! Read more about Mick’s story here.

Set up your fundraising page now

To take part, simply set up your free fundraising page now.

Key facts

Here is a list of the key facts about the campaign. If you have any more questions, please check the Local Hero FAQs.

Start date & time: Friday 1st April at 00:00:00

End date & time: Saturday 30th April at 23:59:59

Conditions of entry: Each active fundraising page on Localgiving was eligible to take part.

Process: Fundraisers will be ranked according to the number of unique donors who sponsor their page within the campaign start and end dates. Donations made outside of the campaign dates will not count towards a fundraiser’s ranking.

Prizes: The top 20 fundraisers at 23:59:59 on Saturday the 30th of April will be declared the winners. Prizes will not be given to the fundraiser, but awarded directly to the charities for whom they are fundraising. Prizes will be awarded as follows:

Charity & supporter limits: Only one donation made by each unique donor counted towards a fundraiser’s ranking. There was no limit to the number of prizes any single group may receive.

*Terms & Conditions apply.

Our Big, “Big” News!

We are absolutely delighted to tell you our great news … 

We have been awarded a grant of £428,998 by the Big Lottery Fund’s “Reaching Communities” programme. All funds  will be used to support children, women and men affected by sexual violence and abuse to overcome the traumatic effects and make positive outcomes and live a future with hope and confidence. 

This grant will allow us to continue our valuable work offering one to one specialist sexual violence counselling from our premises in Birmingham city centre, as well as outreach services across Birmingham and Solihull. This 4 year grant will allow us to increase the number of RSVP counsellors, helping us to respond to the 275% increase in the number of people requesting RSVP counselling (from 2010 to 2015) and to reduce the times that people wait for counselling. This means that we can support and inspire more children, women and men affected by sexual violence and abuse and respond to their needs much more quickly and effectively. As one survivor said “ RSVP counselling gives you the opportunity to talk openly what happened to you, in a way which is too hard to do with friends or family. RSVP literally saved my life and gave me my future back.”

These are exciting times here at RSVP, as we grow our services. We are extremely thankful for this funding from The Big Lottery and look forward to working with them in the future. Read more about all the latest awards The Big Lottery has made: https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/global-content/press-releases/england/110116_eng_dlf_sportingmemories

Santa Cause

Thanks to those who supported- we raised £2000 for support services for sexual violence survivors.

A page in Bham Living magazine.

To see photos from the event click here to go to Birmingham Living.

16 Days of Activism – Stop Violence Against Women and Girls

In the lead up to Human Rights Day on 10th December, the United Nations launched the 16 Days of Activism campaign to end violence against women and girls.

The theme this year is ‘orange the world’.  Campaigners have been sharing photos, messages and videos at facebook.com/SayNO.UNiTE and twitter.com/SayNO_UNiTE using #orangetheworld.

1 in 3 women around the world have experience sexual or physical violence. We need to keep shouting, and keep campaigning to protect the rights of women and girls.

Red Cup Cheer!

RSVP has been selected as one of Starbucks’ Red Cup Cheer charities. We’re in a with a chance of receiving a £1000 donation. To make this happen, we need our lovely supporters (that’s you!) to cheer for us online using the hashtag #RedCupCheer.

From Monday 16th November til 6th December, supporters can follow RSVP on neighbourly.com and Twitter, tweeting using the twitter handle @RSVP_West_Mids along with the hashtag #RedCupCheer to help us win the vote, and up to £1,000 through a Red Cup Grant. You can also follow our page on Neighbourly sharing the link online to contribute to the social noise for RSVP.

The money raised will go towards expanding our counselling service, so that more rape and abuse survivors have quicker access to emotional support after trauma.

So, make some online noise for RSVP using the #RedCupCheer – thank you!

Fundraising success!

We’ve had some wonderful fundraising successes over the past few weeks, which will enable us to employ more counsellors and increase our helpline opening hours.

The Home Office has allocated additional funds to survivor support organisations and we’re delighted to inform you that we are one of them. We’ve been awarded funding from two funds totalling just over £155,000! We’re over the moon (and some more).

We have also received £14,056 from the Brook Trust, a private charitable trust, towards counselling  costs.

As the need for RSVP’s services increases each year, so do our running costs; needing more staff and resources to support new and existing clients. Our recent fundraising success will have a really positive impact – reducing our counselling waiting list and recruiting more volunteers to give helpline support.

Our fundraising efforts don’t stop here, we still need to rent bigger premises to accommodate for the number of clients requiring our counselling and advocacy support. If you’re interested in donating, or fundraising for RSVP there are many ways you can help.

Welcome to our new website

We hope you like the look and feel of our new website.

We’ve worked hard to make the website accessible, but if you do find any accessibility issues when browsing the site, please let us know via info@rsvporg.co.uk

Coming soon, we’ll be updating our self help literature, feel free to let us know if there are issues and topics that you’d like to see covered in the self help section.