Giving Tuesday 2020 - Multiply Your Donations!

Today is Giving Tuesday, a day devoted to giving back, after the commercial excesses of Black Friday & Cyber Monday. Every little bit counts, even if it's only $5. If you, like me, spent way too much shopping online for the holidays yesterday or you just want to give year-round, you can even set up a recurring donation. That's what I did several years ago with OMF (see below) so that $5 is automatically donated from me each month - I don't have to think about it or do anything else, and my donation adds up to $60 a year! It only takes a few minutes to either donate or set up recurring donations.

And there are some amazing deals in place right now that will double or even triple your donation, turning $10 into $20 or $30!

Where to Donate:

Here are some wonderful places to donate to support ME/CFS research and patient support & advocacy - all are doing wonderful work and the first three are the top ME/CFS research organizations in the world, funding or conducting the bulk of the scientific research today:

• Open Medicine Foundation - #TripleGivingTuesdayOMF - today is the final day of this ambitious fundraising goal, and every donation is TRIPLED! It's a great opportunity to make your money go farther! The campaign has been going on since October 20, and they have already surpassed $1 million, which will all go toward scientific research into causes, treatments, and cures for ME/CFS. You can read about their End ME/CFS Project here.
  
• Solve ME/CFS Initiative - the Solve ME Board $1 Million Double Your Money Challenge - Members of the Solve ME Board have pledged to add an additional $500,000 if donations add up to $500,000 by December 31. Your gift of $10 or $20 or $50 can help reach this threshold and unlock a million dollars for ME/CFS research and advocacy! You can read their latest newsletter here and read more about the research this organization is supporting here.
  
• Simmaron Research - donate through their website and you can read all about their research results and programs here.
• #MEAction - this organization is focused on advocacy and outreach rather than on research, but they are doing some amazing work with patients, communities, and governments! For instance, gaining Congressional support in the U.S. is absolutelt essential to increasing research funding. Read more about them here, and you can donate to their Giving Season Campaign here.
  
• ME Association - Big Give Christmas Challenge runs from today through Tuesday, December 8, and supporters have pledged to double donations up to 11,250 pounds. This is a UK-based organization that is focused on patient support and advocacy, as well as some research. Here's more about the organization and what they do, plus their current research projects.
• Emerge - the primary ME/CFS association in Australia that provides research and patient support and advocacy. They are now also helping to support the brand-new branch of Open Medicine Foundation - Australia. You can donate on their website at the link.

Host Your Own Fundraiser:

To have an even bigger impact on these organizations, you can host a Fundraiser on Facebook. For Giving Tuesday, Facebook has pledged to match $7 million dollars in donations! I have hosted fundraisers on Facebook for my birthday, and it's very simple to set up. Just go to the Facebook Fundraisers page and click on "Select Nonprofit" (all of the ones listed above are available), then follow the steps. You set your own fundraising goals, share your fundraiser with Facebook friends, and then Facebook will double whatever donations you bring in!

Donate While Shopping:
And remember - especially this time of year - to make your shopping work for you with automatic donations to your favorite ME/CFS charity every time you shop!  

Goodshop or iGive have almost every online store covered between them - I always stop at iGive first before doing any online shopping. To show you how well this works, my iGive page currently shows that I have selected Solve ME/CFS as my cause, that I have personally earned and donated $292 to them, and that they have earned a total of $6449 from all supporters! Isn't that amazing? Over $6000 just from clicking a button before we shop online.

Amazon is not a part of either program listed above but has its own charitable donation program: AmazonSmile. Just sign up and choose your charity (most of those listed above are options). My quarterly report from AmazonSmile from September 2020 says they sent a payment of $1006 to Solve ME/CFS for the quarter and that to date, the organization has received $11,388 from AmazonSmile! These shopping links really pay off, with almost no effort and no cost to you.

With so many painless ways to give, we can all help to move ME/CFS research forward and support patients!