Donate in memory FAQs

A tribute is a lasting and meaningful way to honour the memory of a loved one, while helping Great Ormond Street Hospital to provide inspirational and world-class care to hundreds of children every day. You can pay tribute to your loved one's memory with a funeral collection, a one-off donation or a regular gift, or by fundraising in their honour. Money raised by multiple people can be added to one central fund, called a Brighter Future Fund. However you choose to pay tribute to your loved one, we're here to provide support and advice.

Your donations will help us to pay for life-saving equipment for children who are critically ill, more beds so parents can stay close by, and ground-breaking research to give sick children a brighter future.

Donations from UK tax payers are worth an extra 25p for every £1 donated – at no cost to you - if you tick the Gift Aid box. Please do this if you can. More information about Gift Aid is available from HMRC.

We will write to you with details of who has donated and a total raised, but we will not disclose individual amounts.

Cheques or Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) vouchers can be made out to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity and sent to Memorial Donations, 40 Bernard Street, London WC1N 1LE. Please include your loved one’s name. Please do not send cash through the post.

Donations can be made over the phone on 020 3841 3131 or by post with cheques or CAF vouchers made out to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity and sent to Memorial Donations, 40 Bernard Street, London WC1N 1LE. Please ask friends and family to include your loved one’s name.

You, your friends and family can jointly raise money in your loved one’s memory with a Brighter Future Fund. 

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We will acknowledge your donation with a thank you letter or email (depending on whether you donate offline or online). If you’ve held a funeral collection or started an online tribute page, we will send a letter four weeks later with details of who has donated and a total raised, though we will not disclose individual amounts.

We do write to the next of kin with a list of donors and a total amount raised in their loved one’s memory, though we do not disclose individual amounts. If you prefer to remain anonymous, please indicate this when donating.

Unfortunately we are not able to offer this service as it is not practical to have plaques in a working hospital. Due to the routine deep cleaning of equipment and rooms in the hospital, we cannot guarantee that a plaque will remain in place.

As you can appreciate, our patients are very ill and for several reasons, including infection control, ward visits are not possible. However, we do have a number of patient stories on our website and videos on our YouTube channel where you can see some of the children in our care who are benefitting from your support.

We are always looking for personal stories to encourage other supporters, so please do contact us if you have a story and photos you would like to share.

We would love to welcome you to the hospital for a short tour or cheque presentation. Anyone who raises over £10,000 will also be mentioned in our annual charity Impact Report.

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Yes, this is a lasting and meaningful way to honour a loved one. You can request collection envelopes that family and friends can use to make private donations. These envelopes include Gift Aid forms.

This is easy to do with JustGiving, which offers a safe and secure way of collecting donations and sponsorship money online.

There are a number of ways you can fundraise in memory of your loved one. You can hold a community event, which includes everything from bake sales and collections to charity balls, take part in a challenge event including running, cycling and trekking, or set up a regular gift to mark a meaningful date. Please do get in touch if you’d like to discuss your ideas on 020 3841 3131 or emailing inmemory@gosh.org.

We will always treat your personal details with the utmost care and will never sell or swap with other organisations for their marketing purposes. We will keep your data safe and private, holding the information you provide for communication, marketing, analysis and administrative purposes, and in line with the Data Protection Act 2018.  For full details of what information we hold and how we process your personal data, please see our Privacy Policy.

If the person whose life you are celebrating was a supporter of the charity, we want to ensure their name is removed from our mailing database to prevent us causing upset by mailing them in the future. It also means that if other people want to fundraise in memory of your loved one, those funds can be added to the total raised in their memory, if appropriate.

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A Brighter Future Fund is one central fund in memory of someone special - built by you, your family and friends. Working together, you can create a lasting legacy in your loved one’s memory while helping thousands of sick children.

At a time of loss many people want to do something to help. A friend may do a sponsored run, a relative might hold a bake sale, and a colleague may want to climb Kilimanjaro. However people choose to help – whether it's participating in community events or challenges, or making a regular gift to mark an important date – all the funds raised by you, your friends and family go into your loved one’s fund. You'll also get support and advice from us every step of the way. To set up a Brighter Future Fund, please call 020 3841 3131 or email brighterfuturefunds@gosh.org.

We can provide materials including collection boxes, sponsorship forms, balloons and posters; advice on how to organise and publicise your event; safety and legal guidelines for fundraising; training tips; and how-to guides for organising everything from a bucket collection to a ball. Please call us on 020 3841 3131 or email brighterfuturefunds@gosh.org for advice or materials.

There’s no requirement to have a JustGiving page, but it is a safe and easy way to collect donations online. Anyone who wants to raise funds for your loved one’s Brighter Future Fund can also start a page, which can be easily linked to yours. This makes it easy to see at a glance how much money you’ve raised together for your loved one’s Brighter Future Fund.

Yes. We can work with you to match your area of interest with the hospital's funding requirements. Please call us on 020 3841 3131 or email brighterfuturefunds@gosh.org to discuss this.

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There are hundreds of ways you can help us by raising money. We can't list them all but our fundraising ideas should provide you with a good starting point to help you decide what you want to do.

We can provide materials including collection boxes, sponsorship forms, balloons and posters; advice on how to organise and publicise your event; safety and legal guidelines for fundraising; training tips; and how-to guides for organising everything from a bucket collection to a ball. Please call us on 020 3841 3131 or email inmemory@gosh.org for advice or materials.

Unfortunately we are not able to attend every fundraising event, although we do endeavour to attend as many as we can depending on the location and nature of the event. Please call us on 020 3841 3131 or email us at inmemory@gosh.org to discuss your event requirements. We can also provide a short film to use at your event, which shows how your fundraising will make a difference.

We are very grateful to you for fundraising for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity and your safety and well-being is our priority. Please follow our Fundraising guidelines (612.61 KB) and ensure you adhere to all health and safety laws when organising or taking part in your event.

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This would mean us taking personal information from you, including passwords, so unfortunately we are unable to do this. It's easy to set up a page; simply go to the JustGiving website and follow the instructions. This will take you through creating your page, adding your story and photos, and customising the email your donors will receive. For any assistance, please contact the JustGiving Customer Support team via help@justgiving.com or see their help section.

JustGiving has helpful instructions on adding offline donations to your page.

Please contact the JustGiving Customer Support team via help@justgiving.com or see their help section. 

As with any service, we do have to pay a small fee for JustGiving to process your kind gifts. As a charity we have shopped around and believe we have found the most cost effective way of providing the best customer care and ease of service to you. JustGiving no longer charges platform fees for using the site. They charge a small monthly subscription fee to the charity - please see their help area for more information.