Funding
Solas accounts and report to OSCR (the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator) can be found here:
2020 trustees_annual_report_appendix_1_word
Solas was initially funded by a donation of £100,000 from one of the founding Trustee, Dr Ghalib Khan. A sum of £80,000 was placed in investments and £20,000 was retained for current use. Unfortunatly, as it turned out, the investments were made at precisely the wrong time with the value declining in the early 2000’s. Since then there has been a recovery and currently the investments stand at just over £90,000. This sum is retained for contingencies, such as the repair to property which in 2014 amounted to around £20,000.
Current income for Solas is made up of:
Investment income – in the region of £1,700 per anum.
Income from property – £6,000 pa (less property management costs)
Donations and Fund raising –
In 2015 volunteers helped raise over £3,000 for the activities of Solas.
Over the past few years we have been able to raise funds through the Scottish Professional Executive Staffs Branch of the Trades Union UNITE. Solas has raised funds by providing volunteers, through the UNITE branch and the Workers Beer Company, to work at festivals, including Glastonbury, one of the biggest music festivals in Europe, which itself supports Greenpeace, Water Aid and Oxfam. Since 2008 this collaboration has raised over £10,000 to support the work of Solas. We hope that this will continue as not only does it raise funds for Solas but also introduces young people to the trade union movement as well as providing access to some of the major music festivals in the UK.