A fundraising campaign is made up of many different jigsaw pieces and one of the most fantastic parts of being a fundraiser is watching all of these pieces come together. 

It will take time and not everything will work out the way you planned, but when things do, it’s time to make a lot of noise and feel very good about the job you do. 

So, today was a good day – we received £30,000 from a Charitable Trust towards our Intensive Care Unit extension at Harefield Hospital, and £10,000 towards our Genetics and Genomics programme at Royal Brompton. 

But every day, smaller gifts will come in via our supporter tree leaf project or via a sponsored activity, or a bake sale, or a simple donation. Every single pound plays its part, and thanks to gifts large and small, we have raised 80% of the £1.1m target for the extension to Harefield’s Intensive Care Unit. The iconic Harefield Fun Run has raised more than £40k each year for this appeal, which is a huge boost – and that sum is made up of £50 here or £100 there. Thank you to everyone who supports this charity – whatever they can contribute. 

And some people do amazing things for the Charity, which in turn bring in much-needed funds. Our 100 Hearts Charity Gala on 26 February will see some of the UK’s best-loved comedians giving their time and huge talent to support us – Rowan Atkinson, Michael McIntyre, Jo Brand, Nish Kumar, Hugh Dennis, Harry Enfield are among the many stars on the line up. Many, many tickets have gone, not surprisingly, but there are still some left – so don’t hang around if you’d like to join us http://rutlive.co.uk/event/100-hearts/. 

And alongside these big, famous names, there is another team working behind the scenes (literally!) to make this event happen – and they are also giving their time for nothing – so huge thanks to them too. 

Money comes to us in all shapes and sizes and through different routes. And where does it end up? Well, in a brand new state-of-the-art Intensive Care Unit, which will help hundreds of patients every year, and the phenomenal equipment needed to test for faulty genes, so that families can be saved. 

You may have seen in the news this week that 620,000 people are walking around today with a faulty gene that could lead to sudden and tragic death. Many of these won’t know. And they can be any age – any age at all.  We have a 7-year-old patient who had a cardiac arrest but was brought back to life. Thanks to the genetic testing service that we’re funding, his family have been tested and they now know who among them shares this gene, and what to do about it so they are no longer in danger. 

If you are a donor and you have helped these campaigns – give yourself a big smile.  You are amazing.