If you won EuroMillions, what local causes would you fund?

[pinkksugarmouse]

Recently a UK resident won £181,073, 415.70 Over One hundred and eighty one million. Incredible. So you've won the euromillions. What cause or causes or problems in your local area would you want to tackle? I would like to do loads of things. But here are a couple. This is just for fun. Let's keep it lighthearted.

We need accessible children's playground's so that all children can join in.

I would like to set up better transport services for disabled people too. Not just shared rides where someone might have to travel many stops before arriving or getting home. And they could run much later so disabled people can have a better evening social life.

There are so few youth services. We need youth groups. There were some but they closed due to local funding. One was specifically for teens and young adults on the autistic spectrum. My daughter used it when she was younger. Its so sad that it closed.

Hedgehogs. There’s a very small local rescue down the road doing amazing things with very little money. I’d fund the hedgehogs.

I would like to build an indoor swimming pool for our village, then endow a fund to reward educational persistence with cash prizes for GCSE and beyond, and to provide help with fees and living costs.

There are a few parks that hold wonderful memories for me and my children so I’d definitely donate to those

there are some wonderful children’s grassroots sports teams that don’t charge a fee but provide a free meal after training that I think deserve to be recognised even if it’s just new equipment or repairs to club houses or the building of a toilet block

wholeheartedly agree on the local vintage railways - there is one I visit often with the children which is trying to extend their line and it would be amazing for the local communities

definitely local hospices and charities - the ones that get overlooked because of the big nationals

I would fund ‘hope for Harley’ in full.
they need 2.5 mill for life saving surgery and I would happily pay for it.

Habitat restoration

Our local almshouse charity, I volunteer for them and they do amazing work and have made a wonderful community

Scholarships for very academic students who are deterred from university by the debt but would genuinely love the academic side of university

Grants for solar panels for charities and community groups

Scholarships for the local dance school as i am aware of talented students pulling out as their parents can't afford it

Splash parks because the sea is too polluted for children to paddle in it

I would start a charity to support people with ME and other chronic conditions as they don't get a fragment of the support and understanding that people with cancer get and I don't really understand why when they can be deeply debilitating and devastating

Grants for wheelchairs as so few people who need them can get them on the NHS

There's so much I would love to fund and I don't see much philanthropy these days yet more and more wealth is concentrated at the top

May I point out that many of the things you'd like to help with financially are often just short of volunteers with time.

Give a little time, it means a lot.

I already give heaps of time

But with two lots of working parents many people can't

And actually there's a lot that time cant achieve without financial resources

I woukd buy a large plot of land and build a huge multi sensory are and hydro pool that families with disabled children can access at no cost to them .

Food bank run by our local church. Such kind people
I’d buy a scanner for Guy’s hospital. My late mum had her cancer treatment there. A less claustrophobic design (I believe these are a thing).

Probably not the smallest charity, but I'd give something to our local air ambulance - totally reliable on donations and I often see it fly across our house. Also, a local wildlife charity, which local people often contact if there's a problem with injured animals.

When we had youth groups, the youth who needed them didn’t go. With computers no one will be interested now. I’d take a long look around me but probably move.

I'd start a charity which helps women with children leave abusive men and rehouses them for 24 months at low cost until they are back on their feet . . . limited to women living within 5 miles of my town centre.

. . . and provide legal advice about all aspects of their issues free of charge.

The first thing I would do would be to fully fund the works needed in our local park to sort out the river and the lake. The plans were drawn up pre-pandemic, but our local council can't afford to fund them, so they've funded what they can, which is an inadequate sticking plaster and actually do nothing to stop the lake from flooding and cutting off half the footpaths through the winter. This is something that the whole city would benefit from.

I would then make a donation to fix all the potholes and future-proof the roads in my city and possibly within the district council boundary.

Then I'd make donations to the local food bank and local amenities and charities that benefit the environment, children, families and older people.

I'd donate £5m in trust to each local state primary school, and 2m to each village hall-type association also for the provision of youth services.

I'd do that until the first £150m or so ran out.

I'd probably devote £10m to an invested fund that provided home services for free for qualifying individuals. E.g. cleaning, gardening, handyman, mother's helps. Basic services that would make life easier for low-income families.

It’s scandalous that child poverty is rising. I’d give many many local schools a fighting fund they can call on to help this… buy uniform, never have to miss a trip due to lack of funds, feed hungry children, have decent kit for learning, swimming lessons… whatever they need. I know it would be a drop in the ocean but it would be a start. I want every kid in my city to know the joy of having an ice cream from a van at a park of clean, safe equipment. Whatever that takes (this is an imaginary world so I can skip the practicalities). Then direct investment into grassroots charities across the city, where a little can make a huge difference. so £50- 100k cheques written here and there for the mental health, refugee support, young people, bereavement, cancer transport, women’s crisis lines etc

I was feeling guilty when I read the worthy causes-of other posters, because I too would be supporting the local stray cat rescue, where our beloved puss came from. .

I would fund Cats Protection, because when I looked it up when my cat might have needed medical care outside of his insurance period there was nothing available due to costs. Apart from that I think charity would be better spent on an individual basis. I would like to just pick homeless people and buy them houses

In terms of the things that are very local to me, I'd donate to local domestic abuse charities, refugee support schemes, boost the funding for the library, fund improvements to my nearest hospital (having spent a fortnight there recently, I've seen how much it needs it) and projects for children in poverty. I'll also donate to grassroots football in the region and fund some public art projects and an adult literacy scheme.

And I'd give our local rugby club the funds to build a lovely new clubhouse and upgrade their, frankly dreadful, muddy and frequently waterlogged pitches.

My local RSPCA home isn't funded by the national charity - they can use the RSPCA name and logo but don't receive any money from the national charity, they rely fully on donations. They do an incredible job. I'd give them £10m without a moment's thought.

There are a few smaller animal charities in the area that'd I'd bung some money towards. Say another £10m for them to share.

There's a plot of land near me that's involved in a tussle between the water company (who own it, keep putting it up for sale then changing their mind) and a local nature charity (who want to buy it and preserve it as a nature reserve but never quite seem to raise enough). I'd pay over the odds to just buy it off the water company and give it to the nature charity. That'd set me back about £1m.

I'd give £1m to my local park to build the cafe and visitors centre they've been planning for years but don't have the money to go through with.

I'd give £500K to the local windmill which is a lovely and quirky feature on a traffic island and looked after by volunteers.

I don't know any other local charities.
I'd run quarterly Dragons Den type events where local charities could pitch for funding.

Why were you feeling guilty? Animals are precious.

I donate £50 a month to a scheme providing music lessons and I sponsored a child to have piano lessons if I won the euro millions I’d extend this and do something similar to what you are suggesting.

there are many who fall through the gap.

I felt the same but basically a huge portion of my (theoretical) winnings would go to animal charities.

I really need dental work that isn't covered by the NHS and I am lucky to have support from family who will take out a loan that I can repay to cover it. So it's shown me there are a lot of people not getting dental treatment for lack of money. I would like to setup financial help for this for others. Teeth are so important, can affect your mental health massively as well

Cats home. In fact I’d probably open a cat shelter.