Double your donation to Family Fund during Big Give’s Christmas Challenge 2022

Family Fund is taking part in the Big Give Christmas Challenge to raise £18,000 in just one week.

These funds will be used for our forward-thinking Your Opportunity Programme, which aims to improve quality of life and independence for young disabled adults aged 18-24 who are still living in the family home.

Faced with three times higher costs to raise a disabled child or young adult, the current cost-of-living crisis is deeply challenging for families – now finding it even harder to afford the things their disabled young person needs to transition to adulthood- including technology, training and leisure activities.

Your Opportunity has so far supported over 2,000 families and we would like to support many more as few other charities specifically support disabled 18-24-year olds.

Cheryl Ward, Family Fund’s Chief Executive Officer, said:

“Raising a disabled or seriously ill child is three times more expensive than raising other children.

“When a child reaches 18, we know they lose an average of 57% of the support and benefits they had before they reached adulthood so costs are even higher for families.

“This financial cliff-edge can be very tough for parents and carers of young adults, but when the cost of living is rising ever higher, and families are having to cut down on essentials like food and heating, there is little room for the extras which improve a young person’s quality of life.

“Through the Big Give our aim is to boost revenue and make a real difference so that we can reach out to more families raising disabled young people, providing them with the opportunity to achieve their goals.”

Cheryl Ward, Family Fund Chief Executive Officer

The Big Give Christmas Challenge

The Christmas Challenge will run from midday Tuesday 29 November to midday Tuesday 6 December.

During this time, Big Give’s Champions will generously matched donations to the Family Fund Your Opportunity Programme. This means your money can go twice as far, as every donation above £1 is doubled at no cost to donors – it’s one donation, twice the impact.

How you can get involved

During the campaign visit the BigGive.org.uk and make a donation to our project Supporting young disabled adults.

Make a difference to families like George’s

George is 22 and lives with his family in Derbyshire. He has Down’s Syndrome, autism, complex health needs and learning difficulties. He also has problems breathing and requires an oxygen machine when sleeping.

His mum, Jemma, explains:  “Through the Your Opportunity scheme, George received a computer,” said Jemma.  “George uses the computer for his specialised programmes that help his conditions through education and entertainment. He loves technology.”

Jemma says, “After George turned 18, a lot of the support finished but life didn’t get any easier, our lives didn’t change, and we still need support. If anything, being a carer becomes harder because you get older. I still can’t work the hours that I would like to.”

About the Christmas Challenge

Big Give runs the UK’s biggest match funding campaign, the Christmas Challenge. For seven days, it offers supporters of participating charities the opportunity to have their donations doubled. Since being founded Big Give has helped to raise over £190 million for UK-registered charities.