The Annual Report released every year during our Annual General Meeting is our opportunity to report back to our supporters on how their donations and raised dollars were spent. It's also an opportunity for us to crow just a little bit about the new heights we've reached, and this year was definitely one to crow about!
To start with, you helped us exceed our fundraising goal and make this past Gutsy Walk the best to date, with an all-time high of $3.2 million dollars raised.
We received a transformative $6 million gift from the Helmsley Charitable Trust for the GEM project this year which, with our additional $4 million investment, makes the GEM project the largest investment in Crohn's research to date. This project offers genuine promise of identifying the triggers for Crohn's disease – and by doing so, helping develop new and better treatments and, ultimately, the cures we need.
Overall, Crohn's and Colitis Canada invested $7.6 million into colitis and Crohn's research last year, which is a 43 per cent increase over the previous year.
We invested in more patient education events in 2013/2014 as well, reaching 33 per cent more people than in previous years.
We are pleased to present the full story of this year to boast about in our 2013-2014 Crohn's and Colitis Canada Annual Report online
here.