Charity dedicates a day to thank its supporters
Melanie May | 28 January 2016 | News
Edinburgh-based charity The Sick Kids Friends Foundation is dedicating today (28th January) to individually thank the thousands of supporters who donated last year.
The Sick Kids Friends Foundation (SKFF), supports Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children, and is devote the entire day to personally thank to anyone who helped it raise £1.7m last year – its biggest fundraising year to date.
An 11-strong team from the charity will spend the day phoning, emailing and sending out cards and videos as many supporters as possible who gave 11,000 donations last year. The charity’s Royal Patron HRH Princess Beatrice of York has also recorded a special video message to share with the charity’s supporters.
The total raised last year enabled the charity to award grants to enhance nine areas of the hospital, including the bereavement site and A&E Waiting rooms. It also awarded 48 grants for items such as toys, DVD players and iPads, arts and crafts supplies and to support the Beads of Courage programme, which sees children use colourful beads to create a record of all the treatments and procedures they have
endured in hospital. The money also funded almost 20 pieces of equipment to help improve the care of children.
Rachel McKenzie, director of fundraising and marketing at the Sick Kids Friends Foundation said:
“We were, and continue to be, overwhelmed by the huge amount of support that we received throughout 2015 and want to express how grateful we are to everyone who was involved with fundraising and donating. We want anyone who helped the Sick Kids Friends Foundation in any way last year to know just how much their support is appreciated, not just by us but by the children and families who visited the hospital and used its services.”
Another charity that has taken the very personalised route to acknowledging its supporters’ help is Charity: water in the US. It sends personalised videos to its supporters, including for its fifth birthday in 2011, which saw it spend a week and a half producing and sending individual videos to 250 of its supporters.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.