At the Meningitis Trust we know good design saves lives.
Providing people with clear meningitis information at the right time can lead to faster treatment of this devastating disease. That’s why give out over a million meningitis signs and symptoms cards a year and have had over 25,000 downloads of our mobile apps.
So when Mark Making asked the question ‘time or money?’ for me the answer was obvious. Time.
This is even though charity giving fell by 20% between 2010/11 and 2011/12, a reduction of £2.3 billion*.
Good design cannot only save lives, it can inspire more people to give. It could persuade a nursery to hold a Toddle Waddle and raise £1000, or maybe a company will take the plunge and take on a fundraising challenge raising £5000.
It costs £5 a minute to provide our services to people who have been effected by meningitis. In 2012 we doubled our Community Support Officers across the UK and we have seen a significant increase in demand for our services as we reach and help more people.
So I hope you can see why good design is more valuable than a one-off donation (however that would obviously be welcome).
As someone who used to work in the mark-making team I know they have the wide mix of creative, technical and strategic skills that can help us. Skills we wouldn’t normally have the budget to use. The big questions is, which project will have the biggest impact?
*Charities Aid Foundation: “UK Giving 2012: An overview of charitable giving in the UK, 2011/12”, published November 2012