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How You Can Help
Donate
Organize You Own Event
Join Our Corporate Partners in the Coalition of Excellence
We Need Your Support NOW!
Help Us Through a Tough Time
Not unlike an ICU - where care is needed immediately - the Canadian Intensive Care Foundation (CICF) needs your support NOW.
We want to be able to take the next step in moving the CICF further in helping to save lives through research and education and avoid another year where we faced restrictions in the cash amounts for research and education grants.
Why is supporting the CICF an attractive opportunity to anyone, especially members of ICU teams? Why should you consider a commitment to the Foundation? What are the benefits?
CICF affiliation shows you are on a team that values life-saving developments with national impact, serving all ages, and helping to shape the quality of life in every community in our country. Second, your CICF relationship would also be an inspiration to others - the opportunity to address needs you believe to be important as we strive to advance science to improve patient care by educating ICU people who care.
In 2006/07, the Foundation allocated more than $126,000 in research and education grants to healthcare professionals who practice critical care across Canada (more than $100,000 to research and $26,000 to education). Unfortunately, we are so undercapitalized - having given our resources away in grants year after year - that we now must address an urgent revenue position to continue national operations. So serious is our situation that our CICF board, in fall 2007, placed a moratorium on both research and educational grants for the fiscal year 2007/08.
To donate now, click here or on the Donate button at the top of every page.
Your support is critical
If you wish to support the foundation and ICU life-sustaining knowledge, there are many ways in which you can contribute, including Membership, Donations or Gifts of Securities. The foundation always needs volunteers or ambassadors who can introduce us to potential donors and event patrons. You can also, as a company, join corporate partners in our Coalition of Excellence.
There is widespread consensus in the ICU community that critical care research is not keeping pace with advances in other areas of research. The gap also continues to increase between basic discoveries and their application to the understanding, treatment and prevention of loss of life in ICUs. With your support we can save more lives. Please help us catch up.
Research and educational funds through the Canadian Intensive Care Foundation (CICF) come from numerous sources - which include businesses and individuals internal and external to the health care community.
For more information about the foundation’s revenue requirements, contact info@cicf.ca.
How CICF Raises Funds
General Donations
Major Donations
Gift In Your Will
Community Chapter Activities
Gifts In Memory
Give In Celebration
Corporate Fundraising
Membership
General donations
Canadians continue to support critical care research and education as well as CICF operations. You can give regular donations of as little as $1 or $2 a day. Every penny you give is valuable in furthering our life-saving work.
Major donations
Research is expensive and requires long-term funding. Canadian families and individuals continue to provide substantial cash donations for CICF administration and grant programs. Consider a major donation and join the ranks of our Ruby, Emerald and Sapphire Level repeat donors.
Gift in your will
Leave a legacy to the Foundation for the advances in treatment that research and education will bring in the future.
Community Chapter activities
Support community volunteers who organize activities - galas, wine events, golf tournaments, casinos, bingos and other activities on the calendar . Take home door prizes, tournament prizes and auction items . Invite friends and family to win a CICF-sponsored bingos or casino events. We are always in need of sponsors as well.
Gifts in Memory
After a month in ICU, an Ontario teenager succumbed to injuries from a car accident. Six months later, his family organized a fundraising event in his memory with proceeds to the Foundation. Offer a Gift in Memory, or organize a fundraiser yourself.
Give in Celebration
Celebrate your next special occasion (birth, anniversary, wedding, etc.) with a donation to the CICF. Ask your friends and family to consider CICF donations rather than gifts.
Corporate fundraising
In business, doing good is one way to do well. Join our other Coalition of Excellence corporate partners whose values intertwine with their customers.
Membership
Join the Foundation where In recent years, we awarded more than $1 million to support young investigators and senior researchers from disciplines such as medical, nursing and pharmacy. We also supported education programs for nurses and RTs. If each individual working in all the ICUs in Canada became members of the Foundation, membership fees alone would generate more than $1million each year.
Learn more about becoming a member of the CICF on our Membership page.
Support for ICUs
ICU teams on the Foundation’s Front Lines
CICF volunteers - from medical reviewers on our grant adjudication committee to our hospital liaisons and fundraising event organizers - remain the lifeblood of our foundation. Their dedication and commitment are crucial to improve the care of critically ill patients by raising funds for important clinical research and education.
On behalf of the foundation - our volunteer Board, and the Canadians we serve, thank you.
Recognition and awareness within ICUs for the foundation is a primary goal for CICF programming. To that end, the key is activity and engagement for the foundation with a focus on the introduction of the CICF to a large core audience of individuals from a variety of health care disciplines. Affiliation with health care providers in 365 Canadian hospitals and opportunities to provide mutual benefits to related organizations are leading to higher levels of recognition. These links nurture relations not only with those who provide care, but patients and benefactors as well.
ICU team members are important disciples for the foundation. We know we must first convince them of our value if there is any hope of delivering this same message to external publics. More volunteers from ICUs in hospitals across the country commit each year to help us circulate information about the significance of their work, the generosity of our corporate partners, and the value of CICF to all Canadians. In return, the CICF supports research projects and education conferences, forums and a variety of knowledge opportunities for nurses, RTs, and other Canadian critical care professionals.
We Need Your ICU Team to Help to Spread the News
Help promote the value of investing in ICU research and education. If you can help distribute literature, or for more information on how you can help, contact CICF, at info@cicf.ca.
Do Your Own Fundraising
What You Can Do
Fundraising is a great way to help investigators continue their research into improvements in critical care. With your help we can really make a difference.
Whether you plan to do some charity fundraising at school or college, at work, or with your friends and family, the proceeds will help more ICU patients rejoin their families.
No idea about what you'd like to do to raise funds? We’ve got suggestions. We will also offer advice on how to get your fundraising activity started. We can recommend activities that are quick and easy to set up. Others will take more time to organize but just arrange the one that you think everyone will enjoy the most.
Try us. We'll offer you advice on how to organize an activity and make it a success.
How to Organize an Activity
So, you think you’ve got the right stuff to organize your own fundraising activity? We think you do. And we're here to help.
Organizing an event - large or small - may involve a lot of planning. There’s much to consider, from what to do to who to invite. But, no worries - help from experienced fundraisers is only an e-mail or telephone call away.
Stress-free fundraising check-list
- pick a date
- find a venue
- set up a budget
- set a fundraising target
- pick your cast and crew
- secure in-kind services
- choose low-cost ways to advertising
- alert the media
- invite everyone you know
- seek generous sponsors
- look for someone (e.g., business leader) to match your proceeds
- collect names of all who support you, and say thanks
- tell us about your fundraising activity so we can help
- collect details and take photographs of your event for our communications
Tell us about your fundraising activity
It would be great to hear what you're planning. Just contact CICF at info@cicf.ca . We can supply you with literature on the CICF and information on intensive care research and education as well as various administration forms (sponsorship, donations, etc.)
Not quite ready yet?
If you are still not ready, gain some experience by joining a CICF-sanctioned event organizing committee in your community. Check out our upcoming events to find out how you can get involved.
At School or College
Short on ideas about ways you can raise money for us in the classroom? We’ve got a few suggestions.
At school or college, get your classmates to pay to:
- enter a spelling bee
- visit your decorated classroom (e.g., Halloween haunted house)
- take part in a kite-flying event
- enter a game board competition
- participate in, or watch, an a School Idol competition, or
- enjoy a potluck of international foods
Organize an event such as a:
- disco
- variety night
- book sale
- sports tournament
- treasure hunt
- film show, or
- school art exhibit
Get sponsored in a:
- walk-a-thon
- read-a-thon, or
- anything else that's a bit of a challenge
At Work
Need some ideas about ways you can raise money for us at work? We’ve got a few suggestions. Some are a little wacky but you can always fall back on old favorites such as take up a collection, go for a lunch-hour picnic for a price, or organize teams for a charity bowling night or ice-skating party.
- ride the elevator
- wear business entire from past decades
- dress as celebrities
- take the microphone for a lunch-hour of karaoke
- watch workmates perform lunch-hour comedy routines
- wear ugly ties, or
- enter a sports sweepstakes
With Friends and Family
Why not get together with your friends and family and help raise money for the CICF? Need some ideas to get you started? Below you'll find a list of ideas to kick start some brainstorming.
At home, get your family, friends and neighbors to pay to participate in a:
- knitting, needlecraft or stitch work night
- spa day
- fundraising dinner party at your home
- version of your game show (e.g., Millionaire, Weakest Link, or Wheel of Fortune)
- local recital.
In the community, you can raise funds by organizing a:
- gala evening
- golf tournament
- dance
- concert
- wine and cheese evening
- fashion show
- guest speaker series
- raffle, live auction or silent auction
- door-to-door canvassing night, or
- garage sale
Join Our Corporate Partners
Coalition of Excellence
The board of directors of the Canadian Intensive Care Foundation (CICF) - and other members of the critical care industry - continues to celebrate and capitalize on long-term corporate partner commitments to fund critical care research and education.
We had the good fortune to share the Foundation’s vision with our generous corporate partners - GE Healthcare and Bristol-Myers Squibb, Canada. For their contribution, we strive for ongoing relationships that not only provide goodwill but also make good business sense for the companies that work with us. Doctors, nurses, administrators and other health care professionals from across the country notice responsible corporations who join them in support of the profession’s continued growth. In turn, we provide a sustained connection to the people and place these corporations serve at more than 365 Canadian hospitals.
To build on the generosity and commitment of our Coalition of Excellence partners, the foundation provides for recognition and attribution. We are also an ethical and impartial link between corporations and the health care professional demographic for which they want to access and support.
As a partner in the health system, compelled to raise funds for researchers and other students of critical care medicine, we believe our Coalition of Excellence program provides a tremendous option for our health care partners to support the discipline and follow appropriate marketing practices.
Your CICF relationship offers:
- an opportunity to contribute to improved patient care from people who care
- an opportunity to contribute to significant advances in intensive care research by ICU investigators - not a capital campaign (renovation or construction) for a government organization or institution
- access to intensive care professionals to "brand" your company in the minds of your the health care demographic
- enhanced corporate citizenry
- a sustained connection to staff at Canadian hospitals
- corporate recognition and attribution in publications, at events, and media releases to build on your generosity and commitment.
Your Name in Lights
Step up to Opportunity
To celebrate corporate partner commitment and fundraising success, the Canadian Intensive Care Foundation is promoting naming opportunities on significant research grants.
The initiative allows corporate partners - current and potential members of the CICF Coalition of Excellence - to step up to new participation levels and to leverage contributions into attractive branding opportunities within, and external to, the hospital environment.
Showcase your contribution
The grant naming opportunity - an enduring tribute to corporate philanthropic support - is viewed by the CICF board of directors and the profession as confirmation of a long-term relationship between partners and the foundation. As a result, CICF leaders created the prospect to enhance, and showcase, corporate contributions to the critical care community well into the decade.
In naming critical care grants, priority will be given to the development of current relationships - those partners who already offer notable support for the foundation purpose of raising funds for life-saving research and education.
Grant applicants - critical care professionals - identify with dedicated corporations who join the CICF in extraordinary support of the profession’s continued progress. The grant naming reward is about profile, additional inclusion, access and a sustained connection to the people and place these corporations serve.
Grant naming opportunities
Under the Coalition of Excellence program for grant naming opportunities - for the development of research and educational programs related to intensive care - the foundation offers several levels of investment opportunities and rewards partners will various degrees of participation and exposure.
Members of the Coalition of Excellence are also recognized on all CICF promotional material (e.g., news releases and publications) and at major foundation fundraising events across the country.
The CICF board of directors will follow transparent, consistent and accountable processes in the naming of grants under its jurisdiction. In considering the recommendations of the grant committee, the CICF board will ensure that any decision to name grants is compatible with the vision, mission and values of the Foundation and complements the company’s corporate giving program.
