Emails 1, 3 and 4 — ready to send. Email 2 held for Lisa's voice.

Hello,

Before December begins, I want to tell you what Life Without Debt actually does — in the plainest terms I have.

A person dying at home should not be spending their last months on the phone to a bank.

Life Without Debt exists so they do not have to.

That is the whole of it. And because our first year has taught us how easy it is for the description to drift, I want to be equally plain about what we do not do.

We do not lend money. We do not consolidate debt. We do not offer advice.

We fund the mediation work — performed by licensed practitioners under Australian Credit Licence 387398 — that resolves a dying person's debts before those debts follow their family. That is the whole of the operation.

Consider "Ellen" — a composite beneficiary drawn from our first-year cases. She had forty-seven days at home ahead of her, and she was spending five of every seven on the phone to lenders. Twenty-three days after the mediation practitioner picked up her file, the debts were resolved. She spent her remaining weeks with her family, not with a call-centre queue.

Next week, on Giving Tuesday, we will open our Christmas Appeal. It will ask for the gift that funds the next thirty cases. Before that ask lands in your inbox, I wanted you to know what the ask is for, and what it is not.

With thanks for reading,
Lisa Fowler
Founder, Life Without Debt

Hello,

Ten days into our Christmas Appeal, I want to show you the numbers underneath it — the audited ones, not the aspirational ones.

In our first year we resolved $1.82 million in debt across 31 cases, at an average $1,840 cost per case. Eighty-seven cents of every dollar donated went to direct service.

Those are the numbers our auditors signed. They are the reason we can be plain about what a gift buys.

It is efficient work because the mediation practitioners are experienced and the referral pathway is short. It is quiet work because the beneficiaries want it that way.

Ellen (still the composite, still drawn from the aggregate) had her file closed at day twenty-three. That is the audited average. She was one of the thirty-one.

This December we are asking for the gift that funds the next thirty cases.

With thanks for reading,
Lisa Fowler
Founder, Life Without Debt

Hello,

This is the last email you will receive from us this year about the Christmas Appeal. Whether you have given or not, I wanted to close with the same plainness we opened with.

It is efficient work because the mediation practitioners are experienced and the referral pathway is short. It is quiet work because the beneficiaries want it that way.

Whatever you give this month will land at the mediation-desk in January.

That is the whole of the mechanism. No countdown timer, no last-chance framing, no matched-giving that is not real. Between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve we will be quiet — the beneficiaries want it that way, and we do too.

Thank you for reading this far. It is not an easy subject.

With thanks,
Lisa Fowler
Founder, Life Without Debt