The Captain Tom Foundation hopes his birthday weekend will become an annual fundraising challenge event and is looking for a new sponsor to support the charity.
Hannah Ingram-Moore delivered the opening plenary for the Chartered Institute of Fundraising's annual Fundraising Convention this morning and revealed that she is looking for a new sponsor for next year’s Captain Tom 100 challenge event.
Her father, Captain Sir Tom Moore, became a “beacon of hope” around the world during the pandemic, she told delegates.
He raised nearly £40m for NHS Charities Together at the beginning of the pandemic by walking 100 laps of his garden and inspired others to take on similar challenges.
Setting up the foundation
At the height of the media interest Ingram-Moore said the family was working around the clock and becoming overwhelmed.
“We sat together as a five around the kitchen table and we said that there was no possibility to stop. And we couldn't stop because the world needed him,” she said. “So, we said what we have to do is we have to gain some control over it.”
This was when the family decided to set up the Captain Tom Foundation as a way to “make sure that that legacy of hope, that beacon of hope that he had become was going to be secured for generations to come”.
Captain Tom died in hospital shortly before his 101st birthday.
“Now, with the foundation, we know that its purpose is still to ensure that my father's legacy lives on,” she said.
The foundation has four broad aims: “combating loneliness, in supporting an ageing population, in supporting children who are going through mental health issues, and connecting the generations”. These were causes close to Captain Tom’s heart.
Captain Tom 100 Challenge
Last year the foundation launched the Captain Tom 100 Challenge, encouraging people to do some fundraising for any charity based around the number 100, over the early May bank holiday, which would have been Captain Tom's 101st birthday.
London Marathon Events was last year’s sponsor and people from over 100 countries took part, with the challenge reaching over 12 billion people.
“Now we'll be looking for who's going to be that partner for next year,” Ingram-Moore said. “Everyone I speak to feels that it needs to become something cemented in time and that we will do it every year. So, let's see.”
Unexpected
The family are not experienced fundraisers or philanthropists and Ingram-Moore said that the she had initially hoped “we may get a column in our local Sunday paper” when she sent the first press release about her father's efforts.
But she believes that the reason her father connected with people around the world was that his values around equality and message of hope came out when he was speaking to people.
Ahead of each interview they would prepare a little bit about the country, which helped to connect with audiences.
“He would be able to say ‘good morning Nashville, I'd love to come and see your Blue Mountains’, and of course he continued to connect,” she said.
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