Why Help

At FRF, we are dedicated to helping fibromyalgia patients markedly improve or fully recover their health as soon as possible. From seeing many patients achieve this, we know that fibromyalgia patients can cease to be patients. By doing so, they can end their costly pursuit of relief, be fully functional at work and home, and enjoyably focus on their personal goals, family and friends.

We know that the symptoms of fibromyalgia result from a limited set of causes that can be identified and corrected. The most common cause is too little thyroid hormone regulation. Because of this, we see fibromyalgia patients as "fibromyalgia/thyroid patients." Providing effective thyroid hormone therapy (which does not include T4 or T4/T3 replacement!) relieves health problems that the deficient regulation has caused and sustained.

Most patients also have one or more other underlying conditions that worsen and/or complicate their fibromyalgia. Some of these other conditions are secondary to the patients' inadequate thyroid hormone regulation, and other conditions are independent and concurrent. Identifying these conditions and correcting them are necessary for most patients to get well, even when too little thyroid hormone regulation is a patients' main underlying causative factor.

Educating patients, their loved ones and clinicians, and the general public is essential. Only by accomplishing this task will millions of people with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia recover their health and become fully functional members of society again. To persuade clinicians to cooperate based on what we know about fibromyalgia, we must complete more studies. And once the studies are done, we must publish the results and publicize what we've found in the studies.

Our educations and scientific aims cost money, and because of this, we need your support. If you can donate, we'll be grateful for your contributions, and we'll use the money prudently and economically in moving our mission forward. Of course, as we explain below, donating money is only one way to help. Please read about the various ways to help and contribute however you can. We're grateful for any help you can give.

Ways You Can Help

Cash Donations. Most people contribute by case donations. They either snail mail checks or money orders to FRF, or they contribute  through PayPal.

Advantages of cash donations. Cash donations are completely deductible from federal income taxes. Of course, this assumes that you itemize your deductions. If you do itemize, your charitable contributions cannot exceed fifty-percent of your adjusted gross income. However, donations that exceed 50% of your adjusted gross income can be carried over for up to five subsequent years. In the carryover years, your excess contributions will be treated as current donations.

Donation of Services. You may contribute a service to FRF. A number of services are of special value to FRF in carrying out our mission. These include computer programming, website design and management, assistance with arrangements for speaking engagements, tabulation of study data into spreadsheets, statistical analyses, and legal advice and assistance. Unfortunately, the value of your time and service rendered to non-profit organizations are not tax deductible. However, your out-of-pocket expenses in rendering the service as a volunteer are deductible.

Tangible Personal Property. Examples of tangible personal property  are artworks, rare books and manuscripts, artifacts of museum-quality, and antiques. To make sure that the full fair-market value of your donation qualifies for a tax deduction, three conditions must be met:

•  The property must be related to FRF's mission.

• You must have a holding period of more than 12 months for the property.

• You must have the property objectively appraised to learn its fair-market value.

We will be happy to communicate with you about tangible personal property that you want to donate. We will also help you get an appraisal of the property.

Advantage of donating personal property. By donating personal property to FRF, you can avoid capital gains taxes on the appreciated value of the property.

Matching Contributions. A company's policy allows the company to match an employee’s donations. These programs are often called  "matching gift policies."

The employer may contribute the same amount as the employee, or more or less. The amount is usually determined by the employer's formal guidelines for matching employee's donations, which may vary from company-to-company.

If your employer has a matching program, a number of questions arise:

• Does the company match donations your spouse or partner makes?

• Will your former employer match your donations as a retiree?

• Will the amount of your last employer's matched donation increase if you're an active volunteer for FRF?

• Does your employer match donations of securities?

• Does your employer match life income gifts?

We can help you learn whether your employer has a matching gift program, and if so, exactly how it works. For help, please contact our Foundation Coordinator Michele Carter at Michele@FibromyalgiaResearch.org.