Major gifts

Why give a major donation to WCRF UK?
Major donations make a significant difference to our vital cancer prevention work enabling us to carry out groundbreaking research, which enhances our understanding of the underlying mechanisms involved in cancer prevention and survival. In turn this research allows us to give informed advice for the development of future therapeutic intervention strategies.

Why prevention?

• According to a report by the World Health Organisation, cancer is set to become the world’s biggest killer in 2010.
• Given the alarming number of cases forecast in the future, the financial burden on the NHS as well as the wider economy will be intolerable if we only rely on treatment.
• In the UK it is estimated that around 80,000 cases of cancer could be prevented each year by making relatively straightforward lifestyle choices.
• While over £390 million is spent annually on cancer research in the UK, only 4 per cent is directed towards cancer prevention.

Current Projects

We have a number of different projects within our education and scientific work ranging from our children’s education programme to specific research studies and an annual specialist course in Nutritional Epidemiology.

Continuous Update Programme
The Continuous Update Programme is based on a live system of scientific data that is updated on an ongoing basis with any new research on cancer prevention published worldwide. This allows us to continuously monitor the research on cancer prevention and regularly review our messages ensuring we continue to give people the best possible information available on the choices they can make to reduce their risk of developing cancer.

International Nutritional Epidemiology Course
This is a two-week course held at Imperial College London that will be run on an annual basis each September. In 2009 WCRF International awarded six fellowships made available to the most outstanding applicants based on their experience to date. These fellowships were created to encourage new scientists in the area of food, nutrition, physical activity as well as invest in the education and careers of those prospective nutritional epidemiologists and the future of high quality research.

Research
Each year WCRF UK’s research grant programme funds over £1million of new world-class research studies, focusing on cancer development and progression, as these relate to food, nutrition and physical activity. Our grant programme consists of three main grant types: ‘Regular Grants’, ‘Seed Grants’ and a new ‘Request For Applications’ stream of funding, investigating a specific research question or hypothesis that experts advise us needs to be tested.

Children’s Education Programme
WCRF UK educates young children and their parents about the benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle through our Great Grub Club (GGC). It is our long-term goal that the programme will encourage children to lead a healthy lifestyle that could help reduce their risk of cancer in the future. With the help of cartoon characters Professor Foodsmart and the Grub Gang kids, the GGC strives to show children that ‘being healthy is fun!

Recognising your support
We work closely to develop a bespoke relationship with those individuals, families and organisations who make significant gifts to WCRF UK. We will help to identify a project that is of particular interest to you and provide the suitable level of communication and involvement you would like to receive.

In addition to keeping you updated on the progress of the project you are supporting, we also offer a number of opportunities, including:

• Liaison visits to projects
• Recognising your gift in our annual review, quarterly newsletter or other publications
• Invitations to WCRF UK events including lectures, talks and networking evenings
• Possible naming opportunities
• PR/Media opportunities

Speak to our Major Gifts Fundraiser
If you are an individual, family or organisation in a position to make a significant contribution towards WCRF UK, we’d be very happy to speak with you and/or meet to discuss some areas of our work that may be of particular interest to you.

Please kindly either contact our Major Gifts Fundraiser via our switchboard on 020 7343 4200. Alternatively please send an email to development@wcrf.org together with your contact details and a convenient time for us to call you and we will respond to your request as soon as possible.

Many thanks in advance for your support of WCRF UK’s work in the field of cancer prevention.