Having worked in the sector for 13 years, in seven charities, often fundraising for little-known and politically sensitive causes, I thought I knew a lot about fundraising. But my last year at Gambling with Lives, a charity founded by families bereaved by gambling-related suicide, has frequently made me press pause on my “expertise” and ask what it really means to fundraise for good.
Before joining Gambling with Lives, I, like many others, had no idea about the scale of gambling harm. I didn’t know that it’s estimated up to 1.4 million people are addicted to gambling in the UK – similar to the number dependent on drugs and alcohol combined – or that there are as many as 496 gambling-related suicides every year in England alone.