All of this, plus printing the Red Reading Guides, has been independently funded and has cost R950,000 over ten years.
Our costs include the usual office and business expenses – rent, consumables (particularly printing for the children, as each child takes home a reading pack after a workshop), banking and auditing, and insurance to cover the children in the event of any injury at a workshop. Our rent is subsidised, we use our own computer equipment and vehicles, and there are no benefits such as health insurance, pension or car allowance. We pay our own tax. The hourly rate remains the same for everybody who works for Children’s Book Network, and all of us do many voluntary hours. Our bookkeeper has, for many years, done sterling service on a volunteer basis.
Other costs include the payment of experts such as book designers, a production manager, illustrators and printers. We do most of our own photocopying on a donated machine. We take our own photographs, apart from occasional donations of skills by a professional photographer.
We keep costs to the minimum, but the inexorable rise in prices of everything remains a constant worry. Our upcoming funding drive (The Whispering Campaign) is designed to help with these costs. Every little counts, and donations, however small, will help to keep this project going. Workshops themselves are funded separately, by Rotary Rottweil and private donations.