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: mental health sessions, business training, mobile team outreach, emergency response, and the operational costs that sustain all of this work.
Most charities run on short-term grants with rigid restrictions. We can pay for a specific project 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 programmes running year after year.
Why annual giving matters
When you commit to £500 a year, we can plan properly. We can maintain our women's centres and mobile teams. 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 supports:
Mental health support - 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 - 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
Sustaining our programmes - The operational costs that keep our centres open and our work running
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 training programme but not the follow up support women need six months later. They'll fund a crisis response but not the sustained services people need afterwards.
Lotus 500 fills the gaps. It allows us to respond when a crisis hits without waiting for a new funding proposal. It allows us to maintain the services women depend on between major funding cycles.
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