Hilary Blume
by Radiyah Shakur
Hilary Blume is a woman with million pound ideas and
a charitable heart. With over thirty-five years in
the voluntary sector, Blume is an expert in her field,
instituting new ways of generating funds for charities.
 Establishing the Charities Advisory Trust (CAT) twenty-five
years ago, with funding from the Home Office, Blume
continues to direct the registered aid organization
that provides impartial advice on trading for other
charities. Much of the Trust’s work strives to
tackle the difficulties and challenges charities have
in generating income with limited budgets, as well
as preserve ethical concerns. The Trust is self-financing
and begins every project by ensuring its sustainability.
One of CAT’s most popular initiatives has been
Card Aid, established and set-up as a trading subsidiary
twenty years ago. Card Aid is a sustainable and ethical
income producing scheme, manufacturing Christmas cards
for charity organizations. It aims to improve the image
and quality of charity cards, as well as advise charities
on over-ordering. Additionally, it provides affordable
printing services and custom printed messages, and
provides charities a greater selling platform to maximize
profits. To date, there are about 40 Card Aid shops
selling Christmas cards on behalf of 300 charities.
It also supplies customized cards to over 1,000 companies.
Not to forget, Card Aid itself is a charity, on average
donating 40% of each card's cover price to the named
charity, with the church or community group that hosts
the shop receiving 10%, and the trust taking the rest.
Blume’s visionary and innovative spirit has
not stopped there. She launched Good Gifts and its
accompanying catalogue in the autumn of 2003. It is
a revolutionary idea offering the public hand-selected
gifts of a different nature. There are gifts for every
occasion and for everyone, but also practical gifts
for people in developing countries. In the last three
years, 3,000 midwives throughout the developing world
have been given bikes. In Rwanda, 2,000 war widows
have been given goats; and 3,000 African bee-keepers
have received equipment. Britain has also received
its fare share of gifts, increasing its beauty with
the planting of thousands of trees. These are just
a few examples of the gifts, but it does not illustrate
the immense good it has done in improving the productivity
and simplicity of many people’s daily lives.
CAT’s other initiatives and projects include
the opening of the prize-winning Green Hotel in Myshore,
South India as a model of sustainable tourism. It is
also the site for the Trust’s annual Development
from the Inside programme that trains students interested
in international development and NGO work. The CAT
also runs a graduate internship programme, where Hilary
Blume has trained over 1000 people in their first jobs
in the voluntary sector.
Hilary Blume has published books on fundraising and
charity trading. The Charities Advisory Trust also
makes donations totaling around £500,000 annually
to a range of causes, such as tree planting; homelessness;
peace and reconciliation projects and arts access.
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