Weekly Wellness - Fatty Liver Disease

The American Liver Foundation and Mayo Clinic define Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease as the accumulation of excess fat in the liver.

Several risk factors have been identified for fatty liver disease. Most (but not all) fatty liver patients are middle-aged and overweight. The risk factors most commonly linked to fatty liver disease are:

• Overweight (body mass index of 25-30)
• Obesity (body mass index above 30)
• Diabetes
• Elevated triglyceride levels

With the increase in childhood obesity, fatty liver disease is becoming more common in younger generations. According to MSNBC, “some experts think as many as 10 percent of all children and half of those who are obese may suffer from it, but note that few are given the simple blood test that can signal its presence.”

What is the best way to prevent fatty liver?

• Maintain a healthy weight and normal triglyceride levels.
• Avoid excess alcohol and other substances that could harm your liver.

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Tips Tuesday – Go Corporate!

Get your company involved in the Liver Life Walk! Creating a Corporate Liver Life Walk Team is a great way to build team spirit around the office, promote healthy living and to show the company’s community involvement at the same time. Hang posters around the office, pass out brochures and hold a registration drive in the cafeteria. Put together FUNdraising events to raise money for the team, such as a Coin War or sell a Jeans Day for a $1.

You can also request a Matching Gift form from your employer. The impact of your gift to the American Liver Foundation may be doubled or possibly tripled! According to a recent survey of nonprofit organizations by Robert L. Weiner Consulting, "29% of respondents reported raising over $250,000 in matching gift income in 2008. 63% raised over $50,000." Matching GIfts can account for a large part of fundraising - all you need to do is ask! Ezine Articles Matching Gift Information

• American Liver Foundation Corporate Matching Gift List
• Ohio State University Corporate Matching Gift Search Tool

Fundraiser Friday - Coin War

This week's Friday Fundraiser is a Coin War or Penny War. A Coin War is a fun and easy fundraising event with minimal costs and is great for an office, school or church - all you’ll need are a handful of buckets or jars to make this a very successful fundraiser! Everyone has change laying around, now they have a way to put it to good use. Bostson AIDS Africa quotes Elizabeth Goldberg, 9. "I like that we get to take extra change and give it to a good cause." Coin Wars also pull on people’s competitive drives by creating friendly competition. Recently a staff person from the NRC Picker office in Lincoln NE raised more than $700 for the American Liver Foundation through a Coin War by creating competition among each floor in the office. Everyone wanted to be part of the winning team, and it showed when the floor totals came in!

Instructions on conducting a coin war:

• Fundraising Ideas and Products Center
• Hope for Humanity’s Penny War

Success Stories:

• Berea Animal Rescue received a check from a school that raised $4,300 through a Coin War
• Farm Bureau & Friends Team raised $965.16 for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure
• Palo Alto High School collected more than 11,000 pennies, 377 nickels, 647 dimes, and 600 quarters with a donation total of $427.21
• BSSD StraightTalk raised $366.05 for their school

According to The UMKULO Zone “One of the most interesting revelations of doing the coin war is how the students react. Most who stop and ask what we’re doing have a very positive reaction...The problem is just getting them to stop and ask.” To combat this issue, be sure to promote the Coin War to everyone around the office before it begins so they will be prepared to participate right from the start. Send emails out to the team, post flyers in the break rooms, set the buckets out upside down the day before to remind people to bring in coins the following day when the competition opens and be sure to send out updates on top teams so each team will continue to stay engaged.

Weekly Wellness - Biliarty Atresia

One in every ten thousand babies are affected with biliary atresia, which according to the American Liver Foundation is “a disease of the bile ducts that affects only infants. Bile is a digestive liquid that is made in the liver. It travels through the bile ducts to the small intestine, where it helps digest fats. In biliary atresia, the bile ducts become inflamed and blocked soon after birth. This causes bile to remain in the liver, where it starts to destroy liver cells rapidly and cause cirrhosis, or scarring of the liver.”

The cause of this disease is still unknown and until researches can determine the cause, they cannot find a cure. The Children’s Hospital notes that there is a surgical procedure that can be done as a course of treatment called the Kasai procedure where “blocked bile ducts outside the liver are replaced with a length of the baby’s own intestine, which acts as a new duct.” If the Kasai surgery is not successful, the only other option is liver transplantation.

To learn more about patients who have been affected by biliary atresia, visit Zander's, Gavin's or Matt's story. This children are facing a very serious disease and it is for people like them that we are raising funds every day.

Tips Tuesday-Online Fundraising Webpages

Each Tuesday, you'll find a new tip, technique or tool to use to help boost your Liver Life Walk fundraising success! Today, we'll focus on the use of personalized online fundraising webpages.

Each person that registers online for the Liver Life Walk will automatically receive an online fundraising webpage, making it simple for others to make a donation. Personalizing this webpage will educate others about why this cause is important to you and encourage them to get involved and make a donation. It's easy to add your personal story and a photo. For a great example of a Liver Life Walk team fundraising webpage - check out Logan's League!

Keep it simple and use the tools you have – online fundraising webpages make it easy! Online fundraising is on the rise. The eNonprofit Benchmark Study recently found that “the total amount of money raised online increased by 26 percent from 2007 to 2008.” What does this mean for you? Individuals are becoming more engaged in and more comfortable with online fundraising. If you make it easy for your donors to find your website, this growing trend will work in your favor!

Of course you will still have individuals who prefer to send a check. That's great too! However, it is probably most effective to offer both and offline and online option, while really focusing your efforts on the online fundraising. According to Fundraising Success, “Participants using online tools tend to raise six times more than those who don’t.”

Stay tuned tomorrow for Wellness Wednesday and a discussion about Biliary Atresia.

Weekly Wellness - Hepatitis A, B and C

Since it seems there are a lot of questions out there about the various liver diseases, I will include current events, updates and facts about different liver diseases. If you or someone you know has symptoms of liver disease, you should contact your physician immediately. As requested – here is some information regarding Hepatitis A, B and C. There are other forms of hepatitis, however they are much less common in the US.

The following information about Hepatitis comes from the American Liver Foundation. Information on Hepatitis can also be found on the Center for Disease Control website too.

What causes hepatitis A? Most cases of hepatitis A are caused by consuming food or water contaminated with fecal matter that contains the virus. Common causes of transmission include: Poor personal hygiene among people involved in food or meal preparation; Eating raw or undercooked shellfish that came from waters polluted by sewage; Failure to wash hands after changing a diaper or after using the bathroom.

What causes hepatitis B? The hepatitis B virus passes from one person to another through body fluids, such as blood, semen and vaginal secretions. The hepatitis B virus can be spread from a mother to her child during birth. Other common causes of transmission include: Sexual contact; Sharing needles among intravenous drug users; Sharing razors, toothbrushes or nail clippers; Being exposed to wounds, blood, or secretions from infected persons.

What causes hepatitis C? You can get hepatitis C if your blood comes into contact with blood from someone who already has the virus. The most common cause of transmission is the sharing of needles and other equipment used to inject illegal drugs. Less common causes of transmission include: Sharing a razor, toothbrush or nail clipper with an infected person; Accidental exposure to infected blood among health care or public safety workers; Exposure to unclean tattooing or body-piercing instruments; Unprotected anal sex or exposure to multiple sex partners; In rare cases, hepatitis C can be spread from an infected mother to her child at birth. It cannot be spread by breast-feeding. Before 1992 there was a risk of getting hepatitis C from blood transfusions. Now all donated blood is tested for HCV so there is almost no risk of getting the disease from blood transfusions.

Why walk?

History has shown that Walk events tend to be very successful fundraising events for nonprofit organizations for many reasons. Love To Know notes the top athletic fundraising events and some reasons why they are so successful.

Having been involved in planning some of these events before myself, I have seen the success stem from things like no barrier to entry – anyone can participate in this type of event; the use of online fundraising tools which allows for quick and easy solicitation of support; and the idea that people give to people, which I will explore a bit further today.

The reason that individuals can be successful at raising money on behalf of an organization is discussed on The Fundraising Coach website and Humane Fundraising with the idea that personal touch goes a long way. Humane Fundraising says to "Remember, people are giving to your group initially because you’ve pulled on a heart string and truly presented the idea with passion. That’s what gets them to bring out the checkbook." Think about it. You probably get dozens of generic direct mail and email pieces asking you to get involved, volunteer, or donate right? Which ones do you actually respond to? Most likely, it is the ones that are personal or the ones that came from someone you actually know.

This information can be an important starting point in raising funds for the Liver Life Walk. Personalize your requests and see how your audience responds. You can see an example of how I have personalized my own misfritz fundraising webpage and use that as a tool to invite others to donate and register to walk with us on event day.