At last night’s charity awards ceremony, we were crowned Charity of the Year 2018
This award is a huge testament to the incredible community who inspire and support us every single day.
The annual Third Sector Awards recognise the outstanding work carried out by charities, not-for-profit organisations and their partners.
It recognises those charities that have had a truly exceptional year and whose recent achievements have attracted the admiration of the sector.
The London event was attended by dozens of charities from all over the UK including, the British Red Cross, Children for Health, MedAir UK, Meningitis Research Foundation and WaterAid.
Earlier in the evening, we also scooped the award for the best Annual Report, supported by our wonderful partners 200 Degrees coffee, and we were also a finalist in the Fundraising Event category for our Everest in the Alps expedition, which involved 30 skiers travelling to the Swiss Alps to ski the height of Everest.
It raised more than £950,000 for the Everest Centre for research into paediatric brain tumours.
This last year has also seen the development of BRIAN (Brain TumouR Information and Analysis Network) – a patient led, pioneering online databank enabling patients to connect and make better-informed decisions about the disease.
By sharing their medical and quality of life data, this will accelerate research to find better treatments and a cure. We’ve built a prototype, started data-sharing consultations with Public Health England, the NHS and have over 350 patient consents to donate data including Baroness Tessa Jowell.
We’re also developing The Brain Tumour Fund to invest in promising brain tumour treatments, through committing £10 million in the first venture capital fund in the world to focus exclusively on finding new treatments for the disease.
Over the last year we’ve been talking to potential investors, with the Fund manager, to gauge interest.
This award reflects these and all our other achievements as a charity this year. None of these award wins would have been possible though, were it not for the incredible work you all do for the community with your fundraising, awareness, advocacy, support and so much more.
From all of us, thank you. While there’s a lot of work still to be done, with your support, we won’t stop until brain tumours are defeated.