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Hello

For over five years autismconnect and its predecessor Autism99 have provided a wealth of information in support of people with autism around the world, and their families, carers and professionals. Currently over 35,000 people from more than 140 countries use our facilities. A survey which we conducted recently showed that there are many who find our service invaluable.

All this has been entirely free of charge. The Shirley Foundation has provided grants aid of almost US$1 million. The National Autistic Society of Great Britain has provided freely and unstintingly of their staff resources. We have also benefited from talented and devoted providers of software headed by Dr Mark K. Smith.

The real world

Grant-aid from The Shirley Foundation has now finished - and who can blame them? They have done their bit! The Trustees of autismconnect now have to face the cold real world - and need to find other sources of revenue.

We have four responses to this situation.

• Our cost structure has been reduced to a minimum. We now ahve one, part time members of staff who works from home - so we are a virtual organisation.
• We have approached other charitable funders.
• We have just launched autismjobs. This provides a recruitment facility to Schools, Care Homes and other Institutions who wish to advertise for staff. Besides providing a much needed service this will also provide income for autismconnect. If you work in some way with people with autism you might visit autismjobs - and recommend the service to friends or colleagues.
• Finally yourselves!

Donations needed

To donate to autismconnect, please click here

It seems to us that the most direct way to meet our costs is to appeal to our members for donations. We do understand that many of you will be dealing with demanding situations - indeed our main motivation is to provide information that will help you in those difficult situations. Often financial problems will be part of the problem.

We believe, however, that some of you will be able to help us financially - and will want to.

Accordingly, we have provided a 'donation' button on the home page. By pressing this button you will be able to send us a donation with great ease by using a credit card or debit card. It may be that you will wish to send us a donation by using a cheque or in other ways. If this is the case, please e-mail us so that we can ensure that your donation safely reaches us. We hope that you will be generous so that we can continue to give you a good service - and indeed develop further. We will naturally continue to give you news from time to time regarding our finances.

Please note that we can claim the tax back from any donations we receive from UK tax payers, so your gift will immediately be worth more to us. This is explained when you click on the 'donate now' button.

Personalities

We have always preferred to remain silent as to personalities and organisation, and concentrate on giving you all the support you need through the operations of the site.

Given the current situation, we thought you might like to know a little more about us.

autismconnect is a charity set up under British Law (Charity No.1084254). It has three Trustees:

John Kinder (chairman) When not working for autismconnect, John works for The Shirley Foundation.

Eileen Hopkins is a senior executive in The National Autistic Society of Great Britain.

Dr Mark K. Smith provides the software design and support services.

As mentioned above, we have one part-time employee:

Adam Feinstein is our editor . As you will know from reading Adam's Week, Adam has a son with autism and has had many years experience in journalism.

John Kinder
Date 9th March, 2004