Charity for the deaf turns every pound it receives into £6 of benefits

The charity works with around 1,400 people with deafness in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, offering a valuable resource to both adults and young people through provision of wide-ranging services including support, advocacy, befriending, community sessions and British Sign Language courses.

Chief executive Andrew Palmer said: “I’ve always known that CDA delivered value for money for the community as a whole and this independent research just confirms it.

“To know that for every £1 given to CDA we provide more than £6 of benefit to the world is a brilliant return on investment and is due to the hard work and ingenuity of our staff and volunteers who apply themselves every day to improving well-being in the deaf community.

“It’s worth mentioning out that 85 per cent of our staff are deaf so their knowledge and expertise in the field are second to none and that’s a big part of why we can make such an impact.

“But more than that it’s about keeping relevant to the changing needs of people and the ways people communicate and interact. That means constantly looking at what we do and the way we do it and always being ready for change or adopting new technologies.”

Elysia Upton, a senior analyst at Costello Medical who undertook the report, said: “Having performed the social return on investment analysis for Cambridgeshire Deaf Association it has been apparent that their work both strengthens the deaf community and brings benefits to the wider local community.

“It has been a pleasure to support the impactful work of Cambridgeshire Deaf Association - we hope that our work has a positive impact and that the deaf community continues to benefit from their work for many years to come.”