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.

sadwidow it's always possible to donate to Woolly Hugs, someone has to keep them in gin after all! On the homepage there's a link to Paypal to make a donation.

Fank U Tripot. I will look at the link. I am a great crafter though if they need more fingers working ....... I crochet 20-30 cat/baby blankies every couple of months - and knit hats for prem babies.

I would be happy to divert some crafting to them.

In that case I fear you could be about to be sucked into the vortex of WH, sadwidow - as you can tell from the homepage there are always projects going on, whether individual ones for MNers here or Billie's Blankets, the Chernobyl project and so on. Everyone is welcome to join in, you can PM them or post on one of the threads or on their Facebook page ... or Tweet them ... basically any way you can think of to send up the bat signal will reach them :)

My vote goes to the Abortion Support Network.

Can I nominate the Amber Phillpott Trust please? They fund research I to childhood AML and the research they are funding has shown extremely positive results as they identified a drug which starves AML cells of what they need to grow. Research into children's cancer is vastly underfunded and this small charity, set up the parents if Amber who died aged 17 monthes is doing amazing things.

Www.amberphillpotttrust.com

I would like to nominate the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust and, if I'm allowed to, add my vote to those for the Abortion Support Network.

SOS SEN. They do brilliant work helping children with SEN and disabilities and their families both directly and indirectly and in keeping them informed of their rights and how to exercise them. Their helpline has helped lots of mums netters.

I vote for:

Breakaway Foundation
PLANETS
Mummy's Wish

I agree with Wooly Hugs gracious decision to withdrawn from this year's nominations. And Women's Aid struggled to receive enough donations last year so not a popular choice.

Thank you for opting for PLANETS, ReallyAm - it means a lot to me, as I explained further up-thread.

Voting - not opting - no idea why that happened.

I am going to once again, nominate

Hope House

Hope House Children's Hospices - Hope House at Oswestry and T? Gobaith at Conwy - provide care and support to life-limited children, young people and their families from Shropshire, Cheshire, North and Mid Wales.

A range of services is offered, including respite and end-of-life care at the hospices and/or within the family home, and support such as counselling, advocacy and the promotion of children, young people's and carers' rights.

Support is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

"Your help is vital so that we can provide the care and support that our children, young people and families so desperately need. We must raise over £4 million every year to maintain our services and receive just one month's funding from statutory bodies."

I know Mumsnet supported one of these charity's who covered the london/south area last year. It would be nice if some of the nominated charities this year could look beyond London, and Hope House covers such a massive area of England/Wales.

and i will also cast a vote for IPSEA :)

Another vote for the Abortion Support Network

I'd like to nominate The Open Nest (and Twitter), a charity which supports adoptive families who are struggling with their childrens needs (many of these children having been through hugely traumatising experiences). The founder Amanda and her daughter Jazz recently spoke to the BBC about their story (they were highlighting why families so need support via a new government fund), which is here

Respite care for children generally is increasingly difficult to find, including for many adoptive families whose children have been deeply traumatised by terrible experiences in their early lives and thus have a huge need for extra support in all areas of their lives. A core aim of The Open Nest is to provide families with respite care for a week at a time at their caravan site. They also support parents in crisis to help avoid the family unit breaking down, help bring parents together, are getting a summer camp going and hope to provide more much needed training to parents and professionals. I can't imagine how helpful respite would have been for me at times when I was on my knees with no support and no one who seemed to understand what my child and I were going through, so I want nothing more than for people to have that opportunity which will hopefully result in families staying together (when adoption disruption is not uncommon) and so children who have already suffered sometimes unspeakable abuse to not go through even more loss and pain.

I'd love to nominate Trafford NCT's Little Bundles Scheme. They work with local midwives/HCP's to provide clothing, toiletries, nappies and baby equipment (prams, moses baskets etc) for mum's in need. And while i know the NCT is a national company this scheme is the work of local mums who give their free time to help other mums in need. They are funded solely through local fundraising and donations from the local community, along with some community grants and they also pay for storage of all the items so they are readily available for urgent referrals. They would appreciate anything given.

www.nct.org.uk/branches/manchester-trafford/trafford-latest-news-press-releases

Hello again

Many thanks for all your nominations so far.

We just wanted to flag up that we've had lots and lots of nominations for individual hospices, but so far support doesn't seem to be strongly coalescing around any of them individually.

We don't want to prejudice the process; obviously the coalescing could still happen organically, which would be great.

But in the event that it doesn't, it might be worth thinking about nominating an umbrella organisation that supports multiple hospices? We've had a quick look and found Together for Short Lives and Hospice UK for starters, but of course there might be others.

Of course lots of you have strong connections with your local hospices and would like them to be nominated individually, and we really don't want to interfere too much - but at the moment we risk having loads of nominations for individual hospices without support really swinging behind any of them, so we just wanted to flag that up.

Do keep nominating and please have a look through and cast your votes for organisations that others have nominated as well

Thanks
MNHQ

Can I please vote for Widowed and Young. Absolutely amazing group of people who are there for you at the very worst possible time, many of their members have been left widowed with very small children and they need all the funding they can get to be able to provide a national service and support network

www.widowedandyoung.org.uk/

ARC - Antenatal Results and Choices. They have been a huge help to me and several other families I know. They are such a small charity but their training really makes a difference. They are trying to set standards of care into the breaking of news.

Also I too would like to nominate SANDS. Again, I have had personal experience of them and they do so much to help parents at a very difficult time.

Glad that someone else has nominated Magic Breakfast - I donate via DD every month, but its such a fantastic charity (But then they all are, its so tough to pick just one).

Can i vote again for Magic Breakfast too. Never heard of it before (my kids aren't at school yet) and it seems like such an excellent cause.

I'd like to vote for Nia Ending Violence and to nominate (can't see it so far) Horton Women's Holiday Centre who provide very cheap accommodation for women and children as well as a unique place to stay.

As it is EDS awareness month, I nominate Ehlers danlos support uk.

I'd like to nominate The Up Project. It's a small national community interest group that supports disadvantaged and disabled families thoughout the UK by giving them free baby carriers and advice on how to use them safely and comfortably. Early intervention really improves attachment between carer and child and enables the family to participate in their local community. These have a knock on effect for years for the children involved.

Www.theupproject.org.uk

My vote is for Solace Women's Aid, providing support to women and children survivors of domestic and sexual abuse since the 1970s.

solacewomensaid.org

I nominate www.countthekicks.org.uk

They really do help to save lives and educate people in baby movements trying to eradicate the myths that pregnant women ignore with scary outcomes.