As is pretty obvious from the title of this blog, words are my business. I spend most of my waking hours choosing them carefully, writing them out, looking back through them, talking them through with colleagues, clients and friends, tweaking an adjective here and an imperative there to (hopefully) produce the perfect copy.
So, when I came across the Adopt a Word initiative that allows you to ‘adopt’ a word for charity, my first thought was, “What word shall I get?” and my second was, “What a great idea!”
I’ve written about fundraising and the importance of a theme/activity that inspires people before, and the Adopt a Word concept strikes me as a little bit of genius. Everyone I mentioned it to knew immediately which word or words they wanted most.
Head over to the Adopt a Word website and you’ll see that this project has plenty going for it: a concept you can get on board with, a worthy cause, celebrity endorsement (lots of), and even merchandise to show off your newly adopted word.
All funds raised go to I CAN, the creators of the project. I CAN is the children’s communication charity, which aims to ensure that no child is left behind because of a difficulty speaking or understanding.
Its mission:
“To make sure that everyone in contact with children knows how important communication is, what a communication problem looks like, and what they can do to help.”
So, the core concept – words – is very closely tied to the charity it supports. The Adopt a Word concept gets prospective donors thinking about words, and realising how much they value communication, which helps to highlight the importance of the I CAN cause – excellent stuff.
Clare Horwood , Head of Individual Giving at I CAN, was kind enough to run me through the background to the project:
“Adopt a Word is one of our fundraising campaigns to raise money from individuals. Alternative gifts are a great way for charities to increase their donations, but it’s a fairly crowded market.
“Obviously, we can’t use goats or pandas so words, which are at the heart of our cause and the building blocks of communication were the natural choice.
“By putting words up for adoption we hope to make their importance understood in the context of children with communication difficulties. Also, because words have such a broad appeal it means we can extend our reach beyond the traditional donor and way out into the twitterverse!”
The initiative has been running since October 2008, but recently received a boost when Stephen Fry purchased ‘wordy’, sparking a flood of donations. I think with another push on social media and via more traditional marketing and PR channels, it could receive much wider exposure.
Adopt a Word’s Twitter persona (@adoptaword) is starting to make waves but as with any initiative, there will be areas for improvement and the guys at I CAN are (unsurprisingly) great to communicate with, so I’m betting all suggestions are welcome.
Personally, I have suggested adding PayPal as a payment option and adding a button so that people can push a message to Twitter about their adoption. What do you think?
(Thank you to @reedwords for making me aware of this. And in case you’re wondering, I bought ‘social’)
Great to hear such enthusiasm for Adopt A Word, which I agree is quite brilliant. I’ve worked with ICAN for a few years now, and have visited one of their schools, near me in Surrey. It was a genuinely moving experience, sitting in classes full of children who, for the most part, looked entirely ‘normal’, but who all struggled in one way or another with language. The patience and care of the teachers, and their completely inspiring headteacher, was overwhelming.
I heard many heart-breaking stories – often of the isolation and loneliness that besets children who can’t communicate. One in particular upsets me whenever I think of it. This one little boy had a rare form of epilepsy that meant he could learn language, but at any point he could have a seizure that would ‘wipe’ all that learning away. Like deleting a disk. He would have to start again. He was also now old enough to understand a bit about his condition (I think he was six at the time), so he would be learning to use words *knowing* that at any point all his hard work could be destroyed.
One of the ways round problems like this is sign language, and ICAN does a lot of work with signing. Children who struggle with verbal language, like the boy above, often have much less trouble, if any, with signing. It’s a different bit of the brain at work.
There is much more to know about ICAN, and anyone interested should definitely find out more, and donate lots of cash. ICAN is still fairly small and not well known, but the work is vital – not only to the individual children, but to society.
For many children, these forms of disability go unnoticed and untreated (as dyslexia has been in the past), and children are labelled ‘stupid’ or ‘lazy’ or ‘disruptive’ (it’s hard to stay calm when you can’t make yourself understood). They go on to fail in exams, and their lives are often blighted by low expectations and unfair labels. Some will end up in crime, many more in unemployment or low-paid drudge work, their potential squandered.
Sorry, I’ve rambled. But it’s a cause I care about, and would love to see given a higher profile. So keep up the good work, Emily!
Adopting for a year and then have to give it back, it’s heartbreaking.
Seriously, anything that helps children with communication difficulties gets a thumbs up.
I was made aware of this site via Twitter by Emily and immediately I thought it was such a simple and lovely way to help what is a great cause. Our son Jackson, who is 6 does suffer from seizures and did have some difficulty with words, nothing to the degree Mike mentions above, but like you say the dedication of the staff to help on a 1-2-1 level is so important for their development.
Thanks for highlighting this Emily and I hope a lot more people get to see the site and contribute.