Jessie’s Fund is a UK charity helping children with life-limiting illness or special educational needs and disabilities to communicate through music. We are looking for new trustees to help guide us in our work and strategic vision as we move into our 30th year and beyond.

Jessica George was lively, bright and musical, and just nine years old when she was diagnosed with a rare and inoperable brain tumour in December 1993. The prognosis was very poor, but there was some hope offered by complementary treatment available in the U.S. Jessie's Fund was established to meet the cost of this treatment and was named by Jessie herself, but she died in May 1994 before managing to travel to the States –less than six months after her diagnosis. Jessie's parents, musicians Lesley Schatzberger and Alan George, decided that Jessie's Fund should become a charity dedicated to helping seriously ill and disabled children through the creative and therapeutic use of music. It was registered as such in 1995. Based in York, Jessie's Fund helps children all over the UK.

Our mission
Communication is one of the most basic needs of everyone. There are many children who have communication difficulties and some have no means to communicate at all. Music can provide a powerful and profound way in which they can express themselves and connect with the world around them.

Our mission is:
• to enable children in children's hospices and hospitals in the UK to access music therapy, by establishing posts for music therapists and providing appropriate musical instruments;
• to help children in specialist school settings to participate in creative musical activities, by offering the expertise of specialist professional musicians;
• to train staff working with children who have complex medical needs or special educational needs and disabilities to use music as a tool for learning and communication.

We're looking to expand our Board of Trustees, to bring in different people with skills and experience to complement our present team. It doesn’t matter if you’ve not been a charity trustee before; what’s more important is the skills and experience Trustees bring to the Board.

Areas we would welcome more expertise are:
• Finance/Accounting
• Fundraising
• Networking, particularly with influential individuals
• Digital/social media/IT skills

We’re committed to developing more diverse representation on our Board and for our Trustees to reflect the community we engage with through our work. We’re keen to hear from disabled people, neurodiverse people, people under 40, and majority ethnic people who are underrepresented on our Board.

Please send a covering letter and C.V to info@jessiesfund.org.uk by 5th October 2023.

We aim to conduct interviews in the last two weeks of October; these will be online, or in-person for those local to the York area.

We hope any newly appointed trustees will be available to join our AGM and trustee meeting on 16th November in York from 1.30pm – 4.45pm.