The focus of someone’s charitable giving can run the gamut. From saving the whales and lemurs to working to abolish homelessness or illiteracy, doing good with your dollars and cents can look as different as night and day. One increasingly common way that charitable giving looks to do more good is through the work of medical research.
Medical research—with its promise of improving health, lengthening life, curing cancer and more—is an ideal arena for gathering charity partners. With technology moving near the speed of light, medical research is poised to do likewise, and these organizations are at the forefront of what it looks like when charity and medical research join forces.
Medical Research Charities
Medical Research Charities, or MRC, raises money in an effort to create and effect collaboration between givers, charities and medical researchers. A registered 501(c)(3) organization, all donations to MRC are tax deductible. Because the charity is a collaborative effort, they are able to share staff and resources, which makes for a more streamlined and efficient charity in which donations can go further in the cause of medical advancement.
Their cooperative efforts benefit a vast number of research organizations that are working on a wide variety of health and medical initiatives. Some of the causes and research they support include:
- Alzheimer’s Research Center of America
- Breast Cancer Research Foundation
- Glaucoma Research Foundation
- National Brain Tumor Society
- Vision of Children
- AIDS Community Research Initiative of America
Association of Medical Research Charities
The Association of Medical Research Charities, or AMRC, is the leading national membership organization of charities and health research in the United Kingdom. They work to help their members meet their giving and research goals through influencing regulatory, research and policy environments.
They encourage collaboration and openness in research, so that all may benefit from discoveries. They work to provide a network whose charities can all deliver and assist in the development of cutting edge medical research. AMRC’s members support upwards of 33 percent of the UK’s publicly funded medical research; in 2012 alone, their member invested over £1.2 billion.
All of the research in which they participate is part of a stringent system of peer review that ensures world-class standards of research, advancement and care are continually met.
The Medical Research Charities Group
The MRCG, as The Medical Research Charities Group calls itself, is group of medical research organizations and patient support charities. The MRCG specializes in promoting the interests of charities that work to restore health through medical research, diagnosis, treatment and prevention.
Based in Ireland, this umbrella group provides the structure of a patient-centered presence in the medical research community. The MRCG’s work is born out of a belief that patient organizations are what should drive and stimulate medical research because they are at the forefront of patient needs. The MRCG has four primary goals that center on medical research in Ireland:
- Increase funds for research.
- Remove barriers to research.
- Increase medical research’s profile.
- Provide members with support and needed services.
Children’s Medical and Research Charities of America
With a focus on children, Children’s Medical and Research Charities of America is a group of charities that provide life-saving surgery, supplies, therapy, support, training to parents and caregivers and more to children who are in medical crisis.
From brain tumors and asthma to AIDS and birth defects, this charity not only works to aid children through research and care, but they have special initiatives to aid parents and caregivers as well.
HMR Charities of America
The Health and Medical Research Charities of America is a group of charities that work together to research, treat, prevent, diagnose and in general, combat disease across a broad spectrum of people and needs. Their charities are carefully and annually screened to ensure that donor dollars are being well spent.
From improving access to health care to research that’s invested in finding cures to many of life’s most threatening diseases, HMR Charities of America scope is broad. They also promote and help provide access to alternative treatments, including hospice care for those who have a terminal diagnosis.
Charitable giving has found a natural partner in medical research. Whether working to provide cures or working to improve access to healthcare, donor dollars greatly aid the cause of medical advancement in these five organizations and others like them.
About the Author: Harris Johnston is a contributing writer. He lives in Boston with his family and works as a volunteer coordinator for a non-profit there.
