Charitable trusts and foundations

Building relationships with donors who are interested in helping us to save more babies' lives, and give more children the chance of a healthy childhood is really important to us. Your support enables us to fund new cutting-edge medical research and ensure up-to-date information reaches the women who need it most.  Please get in touch if you think you may be able to help.

You can have a significant impact on our small organisation

Over the last year donations from trusts have enabled us to:

• Support the Tommy's high risk prematurity clinic at St Thomas' Hospital, where nearly 11% of all births are pre-term. Many of the mothers prior to attendance at the clinic have up to 8 recurrent failed pregnancies; at the Tommy's clinic 9 out of 10 women take their baby home from hospital.
• Fund a project investigating the developmental origins of obesity. This pioneering work is exploring how being obese during pregnancy can 'pre-programme' babies to become obese themselves in later life. We aim to translate these findings to clinical practice and ultimately help prevent the rise of obesity in the next generation.

How Tommy’s makes the most of trust donations

We will ensure that your trust donation has the maximum impact on our cause through our rigorous research selection, monitoring and dissemination processes and in the absence of any research overhead costs.

£500 would ensure that Tommy’s pregnancy health information reaches 500 women this year free of charge.

£2,000 would fund a Tommy’s research midwife for 15 days at our research centres in London, Manchester and Edinburgh.

£15,000 would fund vital equipment and consumables needed in our laboratories for research into miscarriage and early pregnancy loss.

£50,000 would fund a senior clinician to oversee a new clinical trial focusing on the development of new treatments for women at high risk of pre-eclampsia, a life-threatening complication to both mother and child.

Get in touch

To find out more about any of our projects and options for funding, please contact our Health Campaigns and Trusts Manager Jacqueline Clinton on 020 7398 3436 or email jclinton@tommys.org.

How trust donations are being used

Understanding Premature Birth: Fetal Fibronectin Study

Over 50,000 babies are born prematurely every year in the UK every year. With the rate of premature birth on the increase, this statistic is of pressing concern. We hope that in understanding the processes of premature birth and developing better tests towards predicting it then we can dramatically improve the outcome of pregnancy and the future health of the baby.

The Fetal Fibronectin test involves a simple swab taken after 22 weeks of pregnancy, which can indicate an increased risk of early birth. Conversely a negative swab indicates reduced risk. The purpose of the study was to evaluate whether the test would result in improved management of women; either by targeting interventions (e.g. steroid injections to the mother to help fetal development) or withholding unnecessary treatment and being able to go home.

This study was generously funded by the James Tudor Foundation, who said the following:

"The James Tudor Foundation is delighted to be supporting Tommy's and be part of their cutting-edge research into understanding premature birth. The Fetal Fibronectin Study at St Thomas' Hospital helps women to better manage their pregnancy. This is achieved by assessing those women who are at highest risk of premature birth. Premature birth rates are on the increase and that makes this work of paramount importance. The study has been excellently managed, and we are very much looking forward to the final publication of its findings. Initial indications are that the application of this study could have a very positive impact on NHS practice, with more cost-effective management of premature birth throughout the country." - Rod Shaw, CEO, James Tudor Foundation

Tommy's antenatal clinic maternal obesity in Edinburgh

This clinic and programme has been setup to provide individualised multidisciplinary antenatal care to obese pregnant women within a supportive environment; the aim being to reduce risk and improve the outcome of pregnancy for both mother and baby. This programme complements and works in complete tandem with the ongoing medical research projects at our Edinburgh Centre and gives our work direct community reach. The clinic is staffed by obstetricians and midwives with a special interest in the problems caused by obesity in pregnancy, physicians with an interest in obesity and diabetes, a dietician and an anaesthetist.

The clinic is continuing to expand rapidly. Currently we are getting 4-5 new referrals per week and now see an average of 16-18 women per week from the local Lothian community.

By working directly with these disadvantaged and at risk groups, we aim to improve not only their own health during pregnancy, but also the life chances and long-term health of their unborn child - in turn helping to break the cycle of social disadvantage.