ALTHOUGH OUR MAIN FOCUS IS SUPPORTING DESIGN AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION, WE ALSO ENCOURAGE MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH TOO - TO DATE, WE'VE DONATED £9,000,000 TO THESE CAUSES.
July 2010
In March The James Dyson Foundation donated £333,000 to Bath’s Royal United Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. James and Deirdre Dyson made a personal contribution and collectively the total was £½ million.
The 'Dyson Centre for Neonatal Care' and is now being built and is expected to be complete by April 2011.
James and Deirdre "Cut the First Turf" for the new unit, former premature baby NICU triplets, Kimi, Gil and Dillon Endicott, now aged 3, enthusiastically assisting.
Deirdre Dyson, said: "This intensive baby care unit has a special significance for our family and hundreds of others in the local area. The new building will provide a supportive and protective environment for premature babies and their parents."
Dyson people in the UK have chosen Sparks as their adopted charity. Throughout 2009, they’ll be cake baking, parachute jumping, mountain biking and triathlon running to raise money for the vital research into medical conditions affecting babies and small children. The James Dyson Foundation will be match funding individual and collective amounts to maximize our support for the charity.
Megan's design
In 2003 the James Dyson Foundation chose to support CLIC - Cancer and Leukaemia in Childhood. This Bristol-based charity provides essential support to the families of seriously ill children through special care grants.
The sale of a special edition pink and lavender coloured Dyson vacuum cleaner raised £380,000 for these Dyson/CLIC care grants. The vacuum cleaner was designed by four-year-old Megan, winner of the on-line 'Colour my Dyson' competition.
Dyson workers in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, were involved in a whole host of fundraising activities, including parachute jumps, French boules competitions and sponsored runs across the Sahara.
In 2002 Dyson donated £1.5 million to the Meningitis Research Foundation - the largest single donation the charity had ever received. This contribution to the vital work of the charity was raised through sales of a limited edition upright and cylinder vacuum cleaner range in magenta and purple. The campaign originally aimed to raise £1 million, but with the support of Dyson's national retailers and over 100,000 of their customers, as well as monies raised at organised fundraising days at venues across the UK, it exceeded the target by over £500,000.
The donation was used to help fund the MRF’s vital scientific research programme into the prevention, detection and treatment of meningitis and septicaemia and raise awareness of these diseases.
"Meningitis can be deadly within 24 hours and being aware of the symptoms is crucial. So we publicised the symptoms on the point of sale material and packaging," comments James Dyson.
Sir Ranulph Fiennes - Solo expedition to the Antarctic.
In 1996 Dyson supported Sir Ranulph Fiennes on his solo expedition to the Antarctic. A special edition vacuum cleaner sold in aid of the charity, helped raise £1.7 million for Breakthrough Breast Cancer – which was used to fund the Dyson Microarray Laboratory at the Royal Marsden in London. The state-of-the-art microarray facility enables scientists to study thousands of genes at a time, helping identify gene patterns relevant in breast cancer and its treatment.