Custom products help promote in-memory giving

[RECENT YEARS HAVE SEEN an increase in the number of fundraisers set up in someone’s memory, as a tribute to them and a way of helping others affected at the same time by raising funds for charitable causes. In its 2020 Facebook Fundraising Benchmarks Report, GivePanel found that the stand-out area for increases in the amounts raised by Facebook fundraisers compared to the previous year was in-memory and tribute fundraising, which saw the mean average increase by nearly 84%, from $400 in 2019 to $735 in 2020.

And when combining fundraisers from all charities in 2019 or 2020, in-memory and tribute fundraisers raised both the highest mean average and median monetary value. In-memory/tribute fundraising is incredibly powerful on Facebook as people are already connected to friends and family. If a charity does not have Facebook Giving Tools activated they may be missing out on that income – people can’t set up a fundraiser on Facebook if the charity is not present.

Charity Digital’s Laura Stanley commented: “This shows the power that in-memoriam fundraising can have: combined with legacy giving, it is expected to be worth £10bn to charities by 2045. Organisations such as WWF and FareShare have already seen the strength it can have and have set up pages on their own sites where supporters can donate specifically in memory of a loved one.

“But social media adds another level to this type of fundraising, especially on Facebook, where personal networks are established, users are already connected to friends and family, and the appetite for fundraising is strong. By fundraising in a person’s memory on Facebook, fundraisers can pay tribute to someone while putting action behind their words; it gives them the chance to do something good for someone they love.”

She outlined ways in which charities can help supporters to set up in-memory pages.

“For charities, it is important that they help their supporters raise money for them as easily as possible during this trying time,” she wrote. “They can do this firstly by having Facebook Fundraising turned on. Once activated, charities will then be searchable for people looking to fundraise for them – they can’t set up a fundraiser for you on Facebook if you’re not on it.

“Charities can also help fundraisers set up their pages more easily using tools like GivePanel, providing supporters with customisable fundraisers, with the option to upload images of those they’ve lost and set the title as ‘In Memory Of’ or ‘In Tribute Of’, depending on preference. GivePanel have recently launched a brand-new feature on their platform which will allow people for the first time ever to be able to set up an In-Memory fundraiser on Facebook.”

Research has also shown that those who donate to charities in memory of another are also three times more likely to leave money to that charity in their will. With fundraising on Facebook increasing year-on-year, charities need to take every opportunity and help their fundraisers donate to them as easily as possible, whenever they’re able. q

A small charity with a huge heart

[KIDNEY KIDS SCOTLAND, a very small charity with a huge heart, has for the last 22 years supported Scottish children with renal and urology conditions. The main aim of the charity has always been to enable these children to receive treatment as close to home as possible and minimise disruption to the family unit.

In addition the charity helps hospitals all over Scotland, supplying them with much needed equipment and funding posts recognised as being essential. Chronic Kidney disease is a condition that has no cure and that children and their families must learn to live with.

IMAGINE your child only being able to drink 400mls in one day. That’s less than two cartons of juice – a can of juice is 500mls.

IMAGINE being a parent where you must be home before 8pm every single night to ensure your child gets their daily home dialysis.

IMAGINE not being able to take your family abroad or too far away from the hospital because your child cannot go without their dialysis. This HAS to happen in hospital 3 or 4 times EVERY week.

IMAGINE your child missing out on school education, social activities, family members’ birthday celebrations, a sibling’s sports day or a family wedding because you need to make sure they receive their life saving dialysis treatment.

IMAGINE your child spending their birthday and/or Christmas Day in hospital and not being able to see their friends from week to week. q

IMAGINE LIVING WITH KIDNEY DISEASE

For more information about Kidney Kids Scotland please visit our website at www.kidneykids.org.uk, call 01324 555843 or email office@kidneykids.org.uk Kidney Kids Scotland can help in many ways

Caring for cancer without animal experiments is this trust’s aim

[ANIMAL-FREE CANCER RESEARCH is the ethos of the Caring Cancer Trust (CCT), which funds groundbreaking, ethical, animalfree research into cancer, its non-invasive treatment, cure and prevention.

CCT has its own ‘Stopcancer’ laboratory research programme that does not use live animals or embryonic stem cells. Over the past 20 years CCT-funded oncology researchers have discovered potential new causes of children’s cancer, developed new treatments for early-stage cervical cancer and are now advancing knowledge for the prevention of cancer.

Cancer prevention

Cancer treatment and cure are obviously good, but cancer prevention is best, since it avoids the stress of the dreaded cancer diagnosis and the debilitating treatments which follow.

CCT believes that one way to prevent cancer is to correct the damage caused by environmental pollution. It is very clear that the world we live in is now polluted with toxic chemicals in the home, in the air we breathe and in the land on which we stand. Indeed, environmental pollution from industrial farming has produced drastic changes in the microbes found in the soil in which our food is grown. That results in loss of microbial diversity, which produces ‘sick soil’.

The types of microbes found in our gut come from the soil and they are essential for our health and wellbeing. It is very simple: sick soil produces sick humans, sick animals and plants, and correcting that should reduce the incidence of cancer. Our polluted world actively encourages cancer and CCT funds an integrated approach to cancer research which aims to identify cancer risk factors in our lifestyle, and the environment we live in.

Cancer support

CCT also provides special ‘Youth2Go’ Healing Holidays of creative adventure for children recovering from cancer, enabling them to regain their self-confidence and reignite their passion for life after the trauma of their illness and lengthy treatment. In addition, they provide financial support for adult cancer sufferers to ameliorate their sickness, improve their quality of life, limit their stress and, where possible, help their recovery.

A cancer-free future

CCT-funded research aims to increase understanding of how silent infections, lifestyle, diet, genetic predisposition and environmental pollution lead to different types of cancer in children and adults. Indeed they have identified simple changes in lifestyle and diet which, combined with avoidance of exposure to environmental contaminants, will reduce the incidence of cancer in all age groups.

The CCT aims to identify and understand hitherto-unknown cause-and-effect relationships to either limit exposure to such carcinogenic factors or devise therapies which suppress their effects before a cancer has developed.

Prevention now saves treatment later

The CCT research mission for cancer prevention involves: • New lifesaving cancer prevention • medicines • New therapies for cancers in their early • stages • Analysis of the role of microbes in • causing cancer • New therapies for later-life cancers • Heightened cancer awareness by GPs • and public • Lifestyle, diet and environmental • changes for cancer avoidance • Dissemination of trial results relating to • cancer treatment and prevention

Funding

Caring Cancer Trust’s Stopcancer programme is entirely managed and run by unpaid volunteers and financed by legacies and donations. A gift to them funds animalfree research into cancer treatment and prevention as well as Youth2Go creative adventure holidays for children recovering from cancer.

In short, they aim to create a cancer-free tomorrow for the children of today. q

Charity campaigns against environmental abuse

[INVESTIGATING AND CAMPAIGNING against environmental crime and abuse is the 35-year struggle of charity Environmental Investigation Agency UK.

Its undercover investigations expose transnational wildlife crime – with a focus on elephants, pangolins and tigers – and forest crimes such as illegal logging and deforestation for cash crops such as palm oil. The charity works to safeguard global marine ecosystems by addressing the threats posed by plastic pollution, by catch and commercial exploitation of whales, dolphins and porpoises.

More generally, they help to reduce the impact of climate change by campaigning to eliminate powerful refrigerant greenhouse gases, exposing related illicit trade and improving energy efficiency in the coolant sector.

The findings of their investigations are used in hard-hitting reports to campaign for improved governance and more effective law enforcement – such as its latest Running Out of Time report, which examines the fast-growing role of Vietnam as a hub for illegal wildlife trade and the country's failure to respond to the crisis.

Their field experience is used to provide guidance to enforcement agencies and they form partnerships with local groups and activists to support their work through hands-on training.

The scale of the problems they face can be disheartening and the truths they uncover can be shocking. Their programmes of work build on decades of campaign successes and nail-biting undercover investigations by a small group of tenacious activists, from documenting the slaughter of pilot whales in the Faroe Islands, to securing a global ivory trade ban at CITES, contributing to the Montreal Protocol on climate change and the adoption of the EU Timber Regulation to protect forests.

A gift to EIA in your will is an investment in wildlife and habitat conservation. They have already achieved so much, with your help they will continue to keep the pressure on for generations to come. q • For further information tel 0207 354 7960 or visit the website at eia-international.org