Projects and funding opportunities

• My Guide is a new volunteer run service that will enable blind and partially sighted people to take their first steps on the mobility journey.
• Volunteers trained by Guide Dogs will act as guides and will accompany our clients to where ever they want to go from going out for a coffee, a sporting event or perhaps a local community centre.
• The goal of the service is to reach as many of the 180,000 blind and partially sighted people across the UK who currently find it hard to leave home alone and encourage them to build relationships with people outside their immediate group of family or friends.
• Approximately 3,000 blind and partially sighted individuals will benefit from this new initiative in the first year alone.

How can you help?

• The initial cost of the service in 2011 is £500,000
• There will be 36 schemes across the UK
• If you are an individual donor or charitable trust and thinking of donating a £1,000 or more to Guide Dogs and would like to find out more about the Sighted Guiding Service project, please contact: Karen Barns, 0118 9838 350

• We are currently building our new National Breeding Centre, due to open in early autumn 2011, near Leamington Spa in Warwickshire.
• The new centre will increase our capacity to breed puppies from around 1,150 annually to around 1,500.
• This increased capacity is essential to Guide Dogs' future, as it will allow us to fulfil our strategy to help more blind and partially sighted people lead independent lives.

How can you help?

• In 2011 Guide Dogs will spend £72,000 on genetic screening tests to ensure the highest success rate from our breeding stock.

• If you would like to find out more about how to support our breeding programme or becoming a Patron of the new centre with an annual gift of £1,000 or more please contact: Karen Barns, 0118 9838 350

Get a more intimate glimpse of the guide dog journey as you support your very own pup for their first year.

How can you help?

For a donation of £5,000, you can…..

• Give your puppy a name, receive a birth certificate, personalised updates, beautiful photos and – best of all – you can even meet them!
• Make a difference along with memories that will last a lifetime
• If you would like to find out more about Naming a Puppy please contact: Karen Barns, 0118 9838 350

• In 2009, Guide Dogs removed the minimum age requirement for young people interested in owning a guide dog.
• Since then, we have received an encouraging number of applications from young people considering guide dog ownership.
• To help young people to decide whether this is the right option for them, we piloted a weekend kids camp in October 2010 half-term.
• The pilot was a great success and we’re looking forward to holding more Kids Camps in 2011.
• One youngster, 12-year-old Lucy Williams, was live in the Daybreak studio, talking about the time she spent with her placement guide dog, Apple.

How can you help?

• Each Kids Camp costs approximately £2,500.
• If you would like to find out more about supporting Kids Camp, please contact: Karen Barns, 0118 9838 350

• Guide Dogs believes that by preparing dogs from an earlier age for the working conditions of life as a London guide dog means they will be more capable of meeting the needs of London’s guide dog owners.
• This will improve partnership success rates.
• In addition the project is studying whether training London guide dogs in this way will have an impact on training times – reducing training from approximately 34 weeks to 30 weeks.

How can you help?

• The third and final phase of the pilot begins in June of 2011 and will cost approximately £70,000.
• If you are an individual donor or charitable trust and thinking of donating a £1,000 or more to Guide Dogs and would like to find out more about the London Training Project, please contact:

Karen Barns, 0118 9838 350

• The Buddy Dogs project is a 12-month pilot of a new service which will aim to make the best possible use of the dogs that don't quite make it as fully-fledged guide dogs.
• The pilot is focussing on two kinds of buddy dogs; one type will be for children and young people and the other will be for schools

How can you help?

• The cost of the project in 2011 is £70,000.
• If you are an individual donor or charitable trust and thinking of donating a £1,000 or more to Guide Dogs and would like to find out more about Buddy Dogs, please contact: Karen Barns, 0118 9838 350

• In 2011 Guide Dogs’ new National Breeding Centre will open its doors.
• The state-of-the-art facility means that we can increase the number of puppies we breed from 1,100 to 1,500 in the first year alone!

• This increased capacity is essential if we are to fulfil our 2010 – 2020 strategy of increasing guide dog partnerships by one third.

How can you help?

• As part of our fundraising plan we have set up a Patron programme to support the running of the new breeding centre.
• For an annual donation of £1000 or more Patrons will have the opportunity to support the first steps of those pups that go on to form one half of the amazing partnerships we create.

As a Patron of the Breeding Centre you will...

• have the option to have your name engraved on the recognition wall at the new centre.
• receive regular progress reports.
• be invited to the official opening.
• be invited to the New Breeding Centres’ “Annual Patron Day”.

• To find out more about becoming a Patron of the National Breeding Centre, please contact Karen Barns,  0118 983 8350

• We are very proud of our new and improved Guide Dog school for the North in Atherton, Lancashire.
• The training school currently has the capacity to train 110 dogs at any one time and over 300 dogs pass through the school each year, helping us to meet the growing demand for even more amazing guide dog partnerships.

How can you help?

• Our Dog Training School in the North needs you!
• For an annual donation of £1000 Patrons will have the opportunity to support this vital stage of the training of our dogs who will go on to become one half of our amazing guide dog partnerships.

As a Patron of the school you will...

• have the opportunity to have your name engraved on a special brick within the school’s Pathway of Support
• be invited to see your Patron brick in place
• receive regular progress reports
• be invited to an “Annual Patron Day” at the school

To find out more about becoming a Patron of the Atherton Guide Dog Training School, please contact Karen Barns, 0118 983 9350