lotus 500
Sustained support for women rebuilding lives beyond conflict
£500 a year that keeps our work running
Lotus 500 is an annual giving programme that funds the day-to-day running of The Lotus Flower. Your £500 covers the things that make our programmes possible: staff salaries, centre rent, mobile team transport, mental health sessions, business training, childcare during workshops.
Most charities run on short-term grants with rigid restrictions. We can pay for a specific project but not the staff who deliver it. We can fund a three-month pilot but not the follow-up support women actually need. Lotus 500 fills those gaps.
One commitment
An annual payment of £500 that renews automatically each year. You stay committed for as long as you choose, and you can adjust or cancel your membership at any time.
Lasting impact
Your £500 doesn't fund a single workshop. It keeps centres open, staff paid, and programmes running year after year.
Why annual giving matters
When you commit to £500 a year, we can plan properly. We can hire staff on 12-month contracts instead of three-month extensions. We can maintain our eight women's centres without wondering if we'll have to close them next quarter. We can say yes when a crisis hits and we need to respond immediately.
In 2024, a funding crisis shut down hundreds of NGOs across the Kurdistan Region. UN coordination structures closed. International organisations pulled out. The Lotus Flower stayed open and expanded our reach. That's only possible when we have committed supporters who fund the work year after year, not project by project.
What your £500 does
Your annual contribution could fund:
Mental health support - A month of counselling sessions at one of our centres, delivered by locally trained psychologists
Women's Business Incubator - Training, mentoring, and startup support for women building businesses in displacement camps
Mobile teams - Fuel, supplies, and staff time for teams reaching women in remote areas where no services exist
Emergency response - Immediate deployment when crises happen, like our 2026 response to the Rojava conflict when we supported 800+ newly displaced families
Core infrastructure - The rent, utilities, and admin that keep our centres open and our 120 local staff paid
We've been operating in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq since 2016. We work with UNHCR, UN Women, CARE International, and government directorates. We're not going anywhere - but we can only commit long-term if our supporters do the same.
Who joins Lotus 500?
People who want to back organisations doing serious work for the long haul. Many of our members are professionals, business owners, and corporate leaders who value sustained impact over one-off gestures. But it's open to anyone who can commit £500 annually and wants to be part of keeping TLF operational.
What you get as a member
Quarterly updates - Regular reports on what's happening in our programmes. Not polished PR, just honest updates on the work, the challenges we're facing, and what we're learning.
Annual Lotus 500 event - An in-person or virtual gathering where you hear directly from our team, including founder and CEO Taban Shoresh OBE (UNHCR Nansen Award winner 2025), about the year's work and what's ahead.
Recognition - Your name listed on our website as a Lotus 500 supporter, unless you'd prefer to stay anonymous.
Direct connection - You're not just a donor number. You're part of a small group of people who make our long-term work possible.
The reality of humanitarian funding
Most humanitarian funding comes with strings attached. A donor will pay for a three month training programme but not the staff who deliver it. They'll fund a crisis response but not the follow up mental health support women need six months later. They'll cover project costs but not the rent on the centres where the work actually happens.
Lotus 500 fills the gaps. It pays for the things that don't fit neatly into grant applications: the mobile team coordinator who keeps multiple projects running, the rent when a major grant ends and the next one hasn't started yet, the immediate response when a crisis hits and there's no time to write a funding proposal.
This is the work that keeps an organisation operational when others have to close. And it only works when people commit for the long term, not just for one project.
Join Lotus 500
Your £500 renews automatically each year. You can adjust or cancel anytime. By joining, you're committing to being there - not just for one project, but for as long as the work takes.
For questions about Lotus 500, contact us at info@thelotusflower.org