How we are funded

We have been fortunate enough to be entirely self funding since our inception in 1990. A goodly proportion of the fees go to raising awareness of our service and maintaining the website. Further funds are invested in research and development for new and better facilities. Another portion goes towards supporting the free facilities that we offer on our web site.

Are we a charity or a business, a non profit making organisation or educational consultancy? Well none of these really. But there is a new terminology for organisations that are run along business principles but which have a strong ethical and altruistic mission. This is a "social enterprise" and we hope we follow this model.

Funding for you

Many people joining our programmes wish to keep this fact private from colleagues or employers and sometimes even from family members. However, where possible we recommend that you approach your employer, trainer, supervisor or educational department (eg deanery or postgraduate centre) to see if they would agree to covering part or all of the cost of you joining our programmes.

Not every source you approach will have funding available and even if they do, not every source will necessarily approve funding for external careers guidance support. However unless your peers and bosses hear that there is a need for career guidance that is not being met they will not develop new services themselves or allocate funding to this area. Your "speaking up" (if you feel able to do so) lends support to our aim to raise awareness of the need for more extensive career guidance throughout the medical career.

Some of the sources people have successfully approached for funding so far (and it is amazing just how imaginative and creative people can be) include....

Boss 
PGC or deanery budget
Personnel/HR department
Study leave
Training department budget
Chief executive (Trust) slush fund
Professional charities (eg Benevolent funds relating to your industry)
Insurance companies (if they are paying out income for ill health - they have a vested interest in helping people to return to work)
Government career development loans
Granny (or other empathetic and supportive family member!)
Adding the sum to the mortgage

In other words - there are very few people who should not be able to obtain at least our Review Materials (which have proven to be useful - even without the feedback element). In addition our Career Review Workbook is available free of charge (in email text format only) to anyone who returns the feedback form on our contact page.Even those who are unemployed or suffering prolonged ill health should in theory - if they are willing to help themselves - be able to find a source of funding if they feel strongly enough that an independent or different approach to their career concern is needed. For example - we supply free workbooks to any member of the Doctors Support Network.