According to research, one in 500 babies or around 40,000 Australians are living with cerebral palsy, a brain malfunction that cause physical dysfunction due to damage to the brain. When it comes to do fundraising, from September research, two-third of people who participate felt that they do raise more funds as a team.
Official Health Coach for September and Manager of Health, Well-being and Sports at Cerebral Palsy Alliance, Mark Liberatore said that most of the services provided to people with cerebral palsy are through fundraising and the rest are through Australian’s government National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Though is it very hard to ask for donation if it is done by one person and team effort work better. Funds raised from donations are utilized to provide therapy services, equipment, and research, accommodation as well as supports employments to people with these problems.
But how do people with friends or family members with cerebral palsy access services?
Funding source Mark Liberatore”“We don’t have any direct supports from government in relation to funding, our clients can access funding through government’s NDIS programs, which is the scheme the government is introduced, and those people with cerebral palsy can access that fund to access services through our organisation. But like anyone else we need to apply for grants through local councils, or through state government means, but a large part of our support needs are filled through fundraising as set up by September.”
When it comes to the progress made help people with cerebral palsy improving their lives Mark Liberatore elaborated that there are some positive outcomes.
Progresses made so far about cerebral palsy-Mark Liberatore”“Basically in terms of research, there have been some really good gains. One of those has been the incident of cerebral palsy is actually decreasing and the result of that is improve screening and understanding much earlier if someone does have cerebral palsy. So our research team has been able to identify ways to ensure that we can diagnose cerebral palsy with much younger age, the that those people get treatment much earlier, which means they have better outcome in terms of their mobility or their communication, so that is one of many things the research institute was able to do.”
Mark Liberatore said that nearly 68% felt that they do raise more funds as a team not one man show.
What strategies work better when it comes to fundraising?“ I think the big part of September fundraising is you register as a team and you then have the ability to together as a team to figure out a solution. 52% of millennials who are female prefer to engage in social events, so that might be that you arrange to go for a walk as a group and raising money through asking people in that group to network through their networks , a lot of people will their family members and people they work with, but there are also social people or other entities that we are working with every day, i.e local soccer team, or club or neighbourhood group or people that you work with socially is a great way to engage and ask for supports. That is a big part for supporting people living with cerebral palsy through the Cerebral Palsy Alliance (CPA).”
When people donate, do fundraisers make sure that donor’s financial security is their priorities?
Should people worry about their financial security when they do charity donation? “The platform to donate online is similar to online banking and other very secure network. So it is as I mentioned safe doing those activities, so yeah there is nothing to be concern about your security, and that’s is very important to ensure that you are comfortable with that.”
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