Sign in here for Giving Week 2015: nominate your favourite organisation, charity or worthy cause

[JustineMumsnet]

Hello, hello

As (hopefully) lots of you will remember, last year we ran the inaugural Mumsnet Giving Week, raising nearly £23k (with MNHQ match-funding) for five MNer-nominated causes.

The idea is that you lovely lot use this thread to put forward the charities, organisations and good causes that you’d like to benefit - and we at MNHQ will pick five to be the focus of a week-long Mumsnet-wide fundraising drive in June. As last year, we will match-fund the amount raised by the end of the week (up to £25k, just in case any donors turn out to be Bill Gates).

A few principles: ideally the organisations chosen won’t be huge, national charities that already get a lot of coverage and fund-raising welly; they don’t have to be registered charities (our partners at JustGiving will do a bit of due diligence to make sure any that are chosen are legit organisations); and we’re on the lookout for a spread of organisations that reflect MNers’ concerns and interests. Last year the chosen organisations were the PDA Society (providing support for people with a little-known behavioural condition); the MNer-driven Woolly Hugs; Women’s Aid; Free Cakes for Kids; and Haven House Children’s Hospice.

And because we also want to make sure that the causes are ones that existing Mumsnetters have settled on, we’re only going to shortlist projects suggested by Mumsnetters who are registered as of now. (Apologies to newbies who join after this point, but there’s always next year.)

We’ll be partnering up with JustGiving, which will be organising the fundraising element and will also be making a donation to the chosen causes.

You’ve got until May 22 to nominate good causes, using this thread. So get cracking, and as ever do put any queries or comments here as well.

Indie's Gift.

The woman who set up and runs this charity in memory of her daughter who died after being born prematurely helps parents who's child/children have been born prematurely by sending out clothes which fit the baby in a pack with other essentials for both baby and the parents.

I received a pack after my dd was born at 32 weeks and the thought that went into made the situation feel a lot less lonely and scary and I was so grateful for that. I was able to dress my dd in clothes that actually fitted her and she looked like an actual baby, something which I thought wouldn't have been possible at that time.

She works so hard, supports each and every parent, and is so deserving of any donation that could be made to her.
She is an inspiration!

I'd like to nominate Woolly Hugs and Women's Aid please

I'd like to nominate RAVSCA (Raising Awareness of Victims and Survivors of Child Abuse) as there are so many people suffering in silence

I'd like to vote for Pastamancer's Trethosa Hut Project - it's a very deprived area of the UK and a new hut would mean a great deal.

www.readwell.org.uk gets brand new books and storytellers to children in hospital. Aiming to be in all 30 of the UK’s major children’s hospitals this year, ReadWell’s mobile bookcases and storytellers are currently in 26 and its work is totally funded by donations, including by children running a sponsored Readathon at schoolwww.readathon.org.uk.

Every year, more than 100,000 children are hospitalised with a serious and prolonged illness. Books are really important when you’re stuck in hospital. Your world is getting smaller and smaller, you might be bored and scared and in pain. Imagination – stories – are a ticket out of there; they can take you anywhere. But how can hospitals get the very best, latest and loveliest books to children when budgets are already stretched? That’s where Mumsnet could come in…

Another nomination for Mummy's Star.

I know there's been a few nominations for children's hospices, but I'd like to nominate CHAS.

CHAS is a charity that provides the only hospice services in Scotland for children and young people who have life-shortening conditions for which there is no known cure. They have two Hospices in Scotland, Rachel House and Robin House, but also have CHAS at Home, their home care service, for when time at home is needed badly and for those further away from the Hospices.

As a volunteer there in the past, I know how much their services are needed and how well they look after families and children.

Well I've already used 4 of my 5 votes (Woolly Hugs being whatever it will be) so my final one would be for a charity of which few of you will likely have heard - Antibiotic Research UK.

I'll confess that this is more of a political vote than anything else. I'm normally one for saying 'Let people continue to do the Big Stuff Lobbying but in the meantime, how are charities going to pay their electricity bills?' It's just that in this case, there is arguably hardly any time left to do anything and the possibilities for lobbying are very limited given that the large firms involved have no commercial interest in people not using their products. There's no profit motive.

The charity is currently trying to raise £30million to have one new AB in place by 2020 - I think they've raised £100k so far - so prominence on a site like MN might give some added impetus to this and to their general campaign against undiscriminating use of ABs and the use of combination drug therapies instead.

Imagine a world where the last antibiotic was proving ineffective? It's a global issue but one where we can all play our part if we wish.

And that's me done.

I do my bit towards discovering new antibiotics, cures for AIDS, Ebola & malaria, and improving the world's water supply by sharing my computer :)

No money required, just join the World Community Grid.

I would like to nominate www.thedaisygarland.org.uk The Daisy Garland charity, a small family run charity that I would be lost without. After losing their lovely 6 year old daughter to epilepsy, the family set up this wonderful charity to help other children with drug resistant epilepsy. They fund raise to provide children with breathing and epilepsy monitors which can save lives as well as allow parents some peace of mind overnight. The Facebook page and websites are a constant source of information and support and even include light hearted items such as suggested craft activities for families over the weekend.

I would like to use my second vote for swan UK please

Please can I nominate "Hospice At Home"? When my Dad was dying, the team from the hospice in York were super and really supported both my parents.

A cheeky second nomination would be 'Penhaligon's Friends' which are a local Cornish charity who help children who are dealing with bereavement. Again, when my children lost both their Grandads in the same week, the help, support and advice we received from them was invaluable.

I'd like to vote for the Trethosa Hut Project please.

Can I also nominate PLANETS - a cancer charity based at Southampton hospital, focussing on Pancreatic, Liver (and biliary) And Neuro-Endocrine Tumours; and the Countess Mountbatten Hospice, in Southampton.

My wonderful MIL died in early December last year, of lung cancer, secondary to pancreatic cancer, and these are the two charities which she chose for donations at her funeral - the charity was very close to her heart, as she felt these tumours needed more research and funding, and the hospice cared for her as an in-patient for 6 weeks and then provided the round-the-clock care that allowed her to have her final wish - to die at home.

Their care for MIL, BIL and dh was amazing, and made a painful and heartbreaking time just a little bit easier to bear.

I'd like to nominate Action Duchenne which is searching for a cure and aims to improve life for those with Muscular Dystrophy. It is thankfully a very rare disease (affects around 2500 in the UK) but as such the charity is not well known. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is described by the charity as "progressive muscle weakness (which) leads to serious medical problems, particularly issues relating to the heart and lungs. Young men with Duchenne typically live into their late twenties."

www.actionduchenne.org

I know parents whose son has this terrible disease and they expect him to be in a wheelchair by the age of 10 and are having to face the terrible thought that he has a much reduced life expectancy. There is real hope for a cure but now without significant support from charities such as Action Duchenne.

I'd like to vote for Action Duchenne too. My old neighbours lost 2 sons with Duchennes. One was 22 the other 23. They were lovely lads, always smiling.

My ex husband has Becker muscular dystrophy and through him I met a few boys, teenagers with Duchennes.

I add my vote for woollyhugs

And for the abortion support network
It is apalling what women in Ireland have to go through .
www.abortionsupport.org.uk/

Woolly Hugs have withdrawn themselves from the running this year, because they won last year.

That may be so, SDTG. But there are still a lot of us who would like to nominate them. They are a very important, and integral, part of Mumsnet which is why so many of us have nominated them again.

Barnardos - the support they offer families and children who are struggling is amazing and can make the difference between a child staying in a safe, loving birth family with support or being unsafe or placed into care.
Adoption UK - support families going through the adoption process and living with kids who are struggling because of traumatic and damaging starts to life.

Just read the thing about not national charities - sorry! I maintain adoption UK though, yes it's a national charity but not well known or supported unless you are in the field.

I would like to second the Trethosa Hut Project, nominated by Pastamancer.

I vote for RAVSCA

I Vote. RAVSCA for the children of the future to be safe,

I also vote for woolly hugs. Whilst they have been magnanimous in withdrawing from 2015, I think the nomination and votes should stand as the truly MN charitable organisation.

I will get in contact with the organisers to see how I can help practically. But I hope they are in the top 5 chosen.