Charity Intelligence Endorsement of CCSVI Research

As an update to my previous posting, I received an e-mail from Kate Bahen, Managing Director of Charity Intelligence Canada, that outlines the reasons they are giving CCSVI Research such a strong endorsement as a target of donations for the groups and individuals to whom they report:

Thanks Ted.

Charity Intelligence works for private funders - mostly individuals but also private foundations and corporations - helping them give. As you know, navigating the Canadian charitable landscape, trying to figure out good spots for donations can be a challenge.

The client who initiated the Ci's research into CCSVI is anonymous so we are not at a liberty to disclose the background.

However, we too out of curiosity had read the Globe and Mail article back in November and wanted to check this out - was it a hype/hoax? What we found we believe is the biggest giving opportunity we have ever seen.

As investment professionals who volunteer with Ci we look at donating through a different lens. We seek out opportunities where donations can have high social returns. In the CCSVI field, we estimate that for every $100 donated, this could produce social returns of $3,000. This is like underwriting Banting and Best - a historic donating opportunity.

We believe today more than back in February that CCSVI is the real thing - not all people with MS may have CCSVI but for those that do, this is the medical breakthrough that will redefine how MS is diagnosed and treated.

Now the challenge at hand is to get CCSVI happening in Canada. The amounts required to do this are so relatively small - $1.5 million - of which your donation is part. "It is our small streams of contributions that have the potential to fill expansive oceans."

Canadians care very much about MS. Last year Canadians donated $62 million to charities in the MS sector - yet 100% of the $8.5 million in research funding has gone to the auto-immune area and there is inadequate interest in getting CCSVI trials funded. If a small portion of Canadian’s donations can be redirected to CCSVI, we can get the Phase 1 trials funded and underway....and then people like you wouldn't have to travel to Poland!

So we have set up a mechanism where donations can go exclusively, 100% to CCSVI Phase 1 trials..... Canadian donors have the power to make this happen.

At Ci, all our team care passionately about Canada. Canada has a huge competitive advantage in the CCSVI area because of the extraordinary journalism of CTV - we are ahead of many other countries in terms of public awareness. Sadly, this advantage is not being maximized. Canada has the doctors, the machines, the will to do CCSVI research. Yet until they get the funding, nothing happens. And rather than being a world destination for others with MS to come to Canada for treatment, Canadians are going to Buffalo and Poland.

It will be a long battle to move the medical establishment but science will prevail - it's just a question of time, and time is a luxury people with MS don't have.

I would be very interested in hearing the outcome of Poland. Safe travels and please keep in touch.  And thank you again for your leap of faith in donating through an upstart charity you have never heard of before. We promise we'll deliver your donation as per your giving instructions as quickly as possible.

Kate.