Giving Tuesday 2023: Help ME/CFS and Long-COVID Patients

Today is Giving Tuesday, a day devoted to giving back, after the commercial excesses of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Every little bit counts, even if it's only $2 or $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 years ago with OMF (see below) so that $5 was automatically donated from me each month, and last year, I increased it to $10 a month. I don't have to think about it or do anything else, and my donation now adds up to $120 a year! It only takes a few minutes to either donate or set up recurring donations. And every little bit counts.

And there are some amazing deals in place right now that will double or even triple your donation, turning $10 into $20 or $30! All of the groups listed below that do ME/CFS research and/or support ME/CFS patients are now also helping those with long-COVID.

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 - #TripleGivingNovemberOMF - Thanks to generous gifts by multiple donors, every donation made in November is TRIPLED, up to $500,000! It's a great opportunity to make your money go farther! This organization does some outstanding groundbreaking scientific research into causes, treatments, and cures for ME/CFS and long-COVID, with doctors, scientists, and researchers in Collaborative Centers across the globe. You can read about their End ME/CFS Project here.
  
• Solve ME/CFS Initiative - Donations made to Solve ME in November will be doubled, thanks to donations from their Board of Directors! And today only, on Giving Tuesday, another generous donor has offered to also match donations up to $25,000, so donate today and your money will be quadrupled! This organization does a lot of work in both ME/CFS and long-COVID research and advocacy. You can read their newsletters here, including research updates and read more about their Long-COVID Initiative here.
  
• Simmaron Research - Donate through their website and you can read all about their research projects here.
• #MEAction - This organization is focused on advocacy and outreach rather than on research, and they are doing some amazing work with patients, communities, and governments! For instance, gaining Congressional support in the U.S. is absolutely essential to increasing research funding. Read more about them here, ways that anyone can help and take action, and you can donate to the organization here.
  
• ME Association - This UK organization supports patients and research in both ME/CFS and long-COVID. Here's more about the organization and what they do, plus their current research projects.They also have an online shop featuring all kinds of books, t-shirts, cards, and more. And today through December 5 is their Christmas Challenge Big Give, with your donation matched.
  
• Emerge - The primary ME/CFS association in Australia provides research and patient support and advocacy. They are now also helping to support the Australian Collaborative Research Center of Open Medicine Foundation. Donate here.

Host Your Own Fundraiser:

To have an even bigger impact on these organizations, you can host a Fundraiser on Facebook. I have hosted fundraisers on Facebook for my birthday every year, 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, and share your fundraiser with Facebook friends.

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. You can also earn by using the site to search. And use that iGive link I posted in the previous line, and we'll earn an extra $5 for Solve ME!

To show you how well this works, my iGive page currently shows that I have selected Solve ME as my cause, that I have personally earned and donated $305.15 to them, and that they have earned a total of $6602.45 from all supporters! Isn't that amazing? Over $6500 just from clicking a button before we shop online. Amazon is not a part of either program and got rid of its own charitable donation program this year, but you can find most other online stores on at least one of these.

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

 

Let me know if you know of other organizations or other ways to give that I missed here.

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