Main fundraiser photo

MARC Relief Fund

MARC needs your support, now more than ever. 

Please consider supporting us with a monetary donation via this campaign. Buy prints, a lamps or print voucher from our online shop . Recommend us! Tell your work, friends, community about the MARC, the green printers  in town. Word of mouth and a shout on social media can work wonders. We are still open to take on print orders!


Why we need your help:


MARC (Manchester Area Resource Centre) your not-for-profit, community-owned, environmentally-friendly print shop is facing another crisis. We’ve been around for 45 years now (a bit of an institution) and have suffered our share of potential disasters. We’ve had funding cuts and unscrupulous landlords but, with the help of our loyal supporters, we have always managed to struggle on!

However, the “lockdown” measures in response to the Covid-19 pandemic might well be the last straw and we are seriously concerned about MARC’s survival.

We had to leave our previous home on Edge St in Manchester's Northern Quarter in January 2018. Now we're based in Salford and part of the Islington Mill family.


Over 90% of our work has disappeared as bars, restaurants, galleries, theatres and clubs have shut down. No more weddings, community meetings or church services, and our popular Risograph printing workshops have been put on hold. Print fairs, where we meet makers and publicise our services have gone as well. There’s very little left!  We are doing our best to hang on with one part-time worker, but the rest of MARC’s staff have been furloughed as there is virtually nothing for them to print.

 

Left to right: Colin, Iris, Lisa, Juliet, Sarah, Steve.


We know that the situation will improve when lockdown measures start to be relaxed, but it will take a long time for things to return to normal. In the meantime, although we are getting some government assistance towards wages, we still have to pay for rent, leases and service charges on our equipment. Our stocks of recycled paper are very low and we won’t have the cash to reorder when we need to.

Of course, you know that anything you can donate to MARC will be well-spent. We are a registered Industrial & Provident Society (No.23080R) and, as such, pay no dividends to shareholders:  



What the funds will be spent on:

We are already exploring other funding avenues such as the Government Small Business Relief and Furlough Scheme, we set up an online shop  for print sales  and a tshirt fundraiser . Your donation via GoFundMe will help tie MARC over until February 2021, when it is expected that the impact of social distancing measures will have eased significantly. 

Just before lockdown we had to replace our essential eco-friendly inkjet printer. We anticipated a high demand in RISO print services due to many upcoming print fairs, which have now been cancelled. We also restocked in bulk a particularly popular recycled paper. We are running out of many of our stocks, but due to lack of funds, are unable to pay.

Since 2019, we have been running introduction workshops for risography and are looking forward to continuing them on a bi-monthly basis. We expect to resume them in autumn but couldn't facilitate two planned sessions due to social distancing.

Despite printing significantly less, our service contracts and insurance are still rolling and we are still paying rent for our premises. We are in negotiation with our landlord and suppliers. Luckily we have a good working relationship based on years of trust and loyalty.

We're looking to raise a minimum of £14,500 by August 2020, to avoid falling into irrecoverable debt with our suppliers, to continue paying our staff after the furlough scheme has stopped, and to stock up on essentials to keep us going.

A breakdown of the costs we need to make up for due to lockdown:

Inkjet Printer: £10,000
Paper & Ink bills: £2,000
Paper restock: £1,000
RISO courses losses: £1,050
Contracts: £3750 
Rent: £3575 
Wages: £3125

Should we not be eligible to the Small Business Grant we are looking to raise a total of £24,500.


We at MARC appreciate every little help you can give. We are hopeful that our supporters will be there for us, so we can be there for you in the future doing what we know best - green printing for the community.

Thank you,
Colin, Juliet, Lisa, Sarah, Steve & Rick


Christmas staff dinner 2018: (left to right) Sarah, Lotte, Steve, Lisa, Colin, Rick, Juliet, Glen.

 

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  • Josh Molyneux
    • £10 
    • 4 yrs
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Lisa Lorenz
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