Whirlow Hall Farm Trust is an educational charity based on a working farm. Up to 10,000 children visit the farm each year to stay on residential visits or come for day trips.

The Trust's income is made up from grant making trusts, events, corporate support and other individual donations:

• Grant making trusts - we apply for core costs (sometimes packaged as projects) and specific projects; the farm recently received a grant from the People's Millions. This year this fundraising has made up around £160,000 of the £300,000 we need to run the Farm per year.
• Events - these include special open days e.g. lambing season events and summer fair. We also hold lots of other events on a farm theme such as barn dances.
• Corporate support - local businesses give sponsorship of £480 each for groups of children to visit the farm - this is the 480 Club. A business recently sponsored our animal handling barn for £15,000, which we named after them.
• Farm shop - we already sell meat from the farm but are expanding our supply to other outlets e.g. local cafés.
• Other donations - we receive in-kind support from our team of volunteers and also one-off donations from individuals.

In the future we would like to expand our fundraising by developing partnerships with the Primary Care Trusts, increasing our residential holiday charges and by capitalising on our unique selling point; our real working farm.

Case Study provided by the South Yorkshire Funding Advice Bureau (SYFAB) and Whirlow Hall Farm Trust