We are delighted to announce that after starting as a group of people chatting in a pub over 10 years ago, ADHD Aware is now officially a charity!
We’ve always been passionate about the mission of our organisation – to support adults impacted by ADHD – and we have spent the last 3 years actively developing our organisation and its Management Committee (which has now become the Board of Trustees) so that we could reach the stage of maturity where applying to become a charity was possible. No small part of this progress has been down to the leadership of Linda Ashton-Saltwell, our Chairperson. Linda has brought both experience and wisdom to the Management Committee and has helped us through phases of developing the appropriate governance, creating a more sustainable volunteering programme, and ensuring that we had appropriate funding in place not just to survive but to thrive.
We are further reassured that our services are needed, as our membership has nearly quadrupled in the last 2 years and our website users have multiplied nearly 20x. We are able to help so many more people now – and through Linda’s vision, are supporting not just adults who have ADHD, but also their partners and family members, which in turn ensures that people with ADHD have a strong support network empowered to help and understand them.
We also want to thank all of our various donors over time for helping our organisation grow to this point – including the Brighton & Hove City Council, Sussex Community Foundation, National Lottery, Chalk Cliff Trust, Argus Appeal, Brighton & Hove Buses, the National Survivor User Network, and private donors. Without their support and funding for our activities for many years, we never would have achieved charity status.
Now that we have become a charity, this enables us to access larger pools of funding and take the next steps to grow our organisational infrastructure. Our services are in very high demand and we are also establishing more partnerships with other charities, as well as with health and social services, so we very much look forward to the next chapter of our journey, supporting even more adults impacted by ADHD with consistent, relevant, and valuable services.
Sincerely,
ADHD Aware Board of Trustees
Linda Ashton-Saltwell (Chair)
Katie Hudson (Treasurer)