We need your help! Family Cancer Network (FCN) certainly appreciates the support we have received in the past from our generous donors, but we have a onetime need, and hope you will consider a gift to help us.
Although the past several months have been difficult for us all, families already struggling with a blood or pediatric cancer diagnosis have been impacted further. In 2020, there were 1700 Iowa families diagnosed with a blood cancer; that figure does not include the hundreds of Iowa children diagnosed with cancer. This makes our mission even more important. As you know, at FCN, we aim to keep our “overhead” to a minimum. This past year just $.08 of each dollar donated was used to fund our expenses (i.e. bank fees, mailings, website maintenance, corporate identity change, etc). That means more support dollars go directly to a family in need. Over the past 18 months, we have provided more than 75 families financial grants totaling over $110,000! This could not have been done without you! Your support goes to the people who need it most, and not to corporate overheard.
Once again, we are reaching out to request your financial support. This time however it is for a specific need. Currently, we must raise $25,000 to cover the costs of a critical expansion. A gift of $500, $1000 or more will ensure we reach our goal. As grant recipient requests grow, we’ve determined the need to expand our Corporate presence, which comes at a cost. Each of our volunteer executive board members is stepping up and donating to this cause, but we need additional support to make it happen.
As always, we want you to know where your contribution is going. As mentioned, and although we expect to support 100 families at over $150,000 this year, this campaign is for Corporate growth. We have engaged the services of a non-profit consulting group to help us with the campaign in an efficient manner. We will be implementing new software to better track and engage our donors and grant families. To implement some of these changes we are interviewing for an internship position. As a 100% volunteer organization, the volume and necessity of daily tasks have become difficult to effectively manage under our present structure. Those are just a few of the basic needs we have as an organization, but all cost money.
Also, please note we don’t take this ask lightly; this is not an ongoing campaign, rather it’s a onetime capital need to get us over a hurdle. At present, we are not structured to meet the desperate demand from Iowa families in need. We’ve determined we too small to maintain the needed capacity and efficiencies necessary to grow and address needs we are faced with.
Once again, we need to raise an additional $25,000 to go directly to corporate growth to support our critical mission. Your support of this campaign would be greatly appreciated! If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We would love to share more information with you than a letter will allow, and to share some of our life changing stories of the families we serve.
Thank you, and as always, we appreciate your support!
Family Cancer Network Executive Team,
Tim Mauro
Kelly Cade
Mike Biegger
Amy Teas
Larry Laughlin