Crowd Funding
Be part of the answer
Why help?
By donating to Gene Works you will be helping millions of people globally. Genetic conditions effect people from all backgrounds, ages and sex. They are hidden problems that traditional medicines are often unable to help. A simple genetic test could reveal so much to the carrier. But we are not stopping there! We are working with the most cutting edge techniques, from the best universities and laboratories around the world and using their techniques, with our knowledge of Fragile X, to build therapies that we hope will be applicable to many other conditions.
Looking Ahead
Not waiting to catch up
We cant help others without you
Donating even a little bit can make all the difference, every penny will be invested by us to:
1. Detect – To build new ways of identifying Fragile X early.
2. Discover – To find new therapies and cross purpose existing medicines.
3. Treat – To research and develop gene editing techniques to treat Fragile X symptoms.
How can I help?
To become a crowd funder we simply ask you to donate a minimum of £4 per month, if you can afford more then thank you, every little helps.
As a donor your contribution will be used to support the operations of Gene Works. Once we make a discovery that can be used to treat Fragile X, our partner organisation will establish a Thank You Fund which they will grow until they can thank you for your donations with up to 3 times the total you donated.
There are no contracts, you can stop and start whenever you would like. But to be as fair as possible to the community only those who are actively giving at the time we announce a break through AND have been donating for a minimum of 12 consecutive months prior will be eligible for a reward.
A Little
Will change and an awful lot.
Our intention
Is to be able to one day help people with Learning and Intellectual Disabilities who through no fault of their own have huge challenges in life to overcome, their families fight for them every day, and most countries’ social care systems offer little or no rest bite for the carer or relief from symptoms for the affected individual. Helping them is our mission and our sole focus! However, we have partnered with a UK company that thinks a little differently about profits! They think that profit should come secondary to people’s health and well-being, they know that the world is expensive and that discovery costs a lot of money and only the conditions that are well known, receive big funding and global attention. Often these conditions commonly affect neurotypical people who then become ill! We don’t think that is fair and just because you are born with a condition doesn’t mean you should receive less of anything! So we (Gene Works and our partner) want to help by controlling costs of delivery, supporting our charitable activities, and also thanking and rewarding you for your ongoing support and getting us to our goal.
If you have been a crowd funder for more than 12 months at the point we make our break through then we will mark your account as a “reward account” and it is our intention to pass this information to our partner who will hopefully be able to reward your donation up to 3 times the total you donated to us. If you would like to keep donating then that’s great! They will also give you the option to pass your thank you from them directly to us. They will build another Thank You Fund and when it’s time they can make another payment to you for your donations since the previous reward and on and on we go.
So why would you keep donating after we have made a breakthrough? For two reasons, first off our work with Fragile X wont necessarily be done, the treatment may need refining, it may only suit one group and not all, or it may treat but not detect for example. Secondly we are not stopping with Fragile X, our discovery may well help other conditions such as ASD, Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Down Syndrome and many more. Our mission is to help people, so we will keep going…
We are starting with Fragile X but we will ask our donors what conditions they are interested in or connected to. This information will steer us to our next research project! We want to give our donors a voice and not lead by “lucrative conditions”!
Donation NOT Investment
We want to stress that we are a Not for Profit organisation and you must see your donations as exactly that, not for personal profit or gain it should be considered as a gift to a charity and given freely and only if you can afford it! We are a UK charity and our partner is a UK registered company. Your donation is a gift to us the charity and can not and will not go anywhere other than on the operations of Gene Works charity, our research, our operation and our community support mission.
We are working on a hugely complex and difficult project and when working on cutting-edge technology there can be no guarantees. With your support, we stand the best chance of making a difference in millions of people’s lives and those who are yet to be born. Your gift WILL make all the difference and if we achieve our goals then we would like to be able to thank you for your belief in our mission. To do this we need to partner with a like-minded company.
Some charities use prizes, giveaways, or lotteries to raise funds. But the small print of these is that part of your donation goes towards the prize fund, part to the marketing, wages and other costs of the organising company. Some will give a fixed amount to the charity knowing they will/should be able to raise more money than the gift, while others will use words like “all proceeds will go to…” but what are the “proceeds? and who sets the level!
But at Gene Works and with our partners we are different. Our model means 100% of your donation will come to Gene Works operation, no one else just Gene Works for our research and charity work. The difference is you might not see a reward if we don’t make a breakthrough in our research and someone else beats us to it. But that’s ok as it’s the people affected with Fragile X and any other conditions we grow to research that win. They are the people we are all giving to so we can help! After all, it’s not a loan, it’s not an investment, and it’s not a lottery. It’s a donation with a maybe!
We are still a very early stage startup organisation.
Please feel free to get in touch and ask us anything.