Over three months, you attended quizzes, organised walks, ate kale and sent mother’s day cards. You generously shared our messages on your channels. You performed at Vault Festival and drank Team Mumosas at The Horse and Stables. You blogged, you sold things, you donated and donated and donated again.
We can now announce that together, we raised an astounding £502,952.10.
This figure includes gift aid and matched funding from the UK government. Here’s a video of Cherio, Francine and Cherio, announcing the final figure when they arrived in Meru at the end of Team Mum Ride Africa.
This appeal was spearheaded by a grassroots effort by the UK parenting online community through over 100 channels. Mum Muddling Through encouraged her network to sell one thing for the appeal. Clary & Peg launched a limited edition range in Kenyan prints. A New Parent Crafts video created by Jungle Creations for their Craft Factory Kids Facebook channel attracted 2.8million views (featuring my baby nephew Otis!) Comedy favourites Scummy Mummies and Drunk Women Solving Crime held live podcast events at Vault Festival. Even online parenting giants Hoop and Mumsnet declared themselves “In Team Mum” with Hoop making their own generous donations to encourage people to take part in their annual parenting survey.
And it wasn’t just mums who got on board. Father-hood.co.uk wrote about “Why this dad is in Team Mum”. Mighty fundraising organisation Soroptimist International Great Britain and Ireland raised thousands for the appeal over the three months, with International Women’s Day quizzes and other events. Some wonderful choirs volunteered to sing in London stations for Mother’s Day. Our own team took on triathon challenges, held supper clubs and took part in our special all-women Ride Africa.
Child.org will never forget the support we received from the UK parenting community, Charity Fast-Trackers, Soroptimists and Child.org supporters. We hope you are as excited as our team to have created a brand new project that will arm thousands of new mums and mums-to-be with information and support when they most need it.
Our pregnancy support groups are coming. Our Team Mum Ride Africa cyclists visited Meru on Saturday, at the end of thier long cycle where they celebrated with the mums of this community and with our local partners (check out thier instagram stories)!
This is where it starts. This is where the very first Team Mum pregnancy support groups will be formed. Please make sure you’re signed up to our newsletter to receive updates as the groups are designed, planned, created and attended by the mums of Meru.
What next for Team Mum?
If you’ve been inspired by your involvement in this epic campaign, then please stay involved! We have exciting plans for the next chapter of Team Mum, and those of you who read James’ recent blog about his trip to Sierra Leone will realise that we have many more mums to reach! If you’re one of our Team Mum partners (or aren’t but would like to be involved next time) drop Ami (Partnerships Manager) an email at ami@child.org to ask about some exciting upcoming projects.
If you would like to be a part of Team Mum and fund Child.org’s work with mums and babies into the future, then do something really amazing:
Join Team Mum Monthly