Donate to support the work of the CRN Foundation by year's end
December 1, 2022
Dear CRN Friends and Colleagues,
We are making a difference! Please help us continue to spread the word about the relationship between Vitamin D levels and the incidence and severity of COVID-19. We are writing to ask your company to make a tax-deductible contribution to the CRN Foundation to continue this work.
In January 2021, former Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona penned an editorial calling on healthcare practitioners to raise awareness about the role of Vitamin D potentially to reduce the incidence and severity of COVID-19. He wrote:
It is our responsibility as physicians not to wait for perfect evidence when making life-and-death decisions. Given the safety profile of vitamin D, the 40% prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in the U.S., and the fact that this season will likely be the deadliest phase of the pandemic to date, we need to act now. Identifying and eradicating vitamin D deficiency with early and aggressive supplementation in COVID-19 has the potential to save thousands of lives and should be one of our highest public health priorities.
After reading his call to action, how could this industry not respond? With the help of our CRN members, the CRN Foundation conceived and developed Vitamin D & Me!, a space for consumers and health care practitioners to explore the collective research, to educate themselves on the emerging data, and to hear directly from the researchers involved.
Since then, the Vitamin D & Me! education campaign has reached nearly 6 million Americans and has attracted over 170,000 unique users to the website to learn more about the connections between COVID-19 and vitamin D as well as the overall benefits of vitamin D. In the Summer of 2022, CRN presented Vitamin D & Me! at the Shopping for Health Annual Conference to dieticians that reach more than 65 supermarket chains and more than 10,000 individual stores. The Vitamin D & Me! program continues to receive positive attention, including winning NutraIngredients-USA’s Award for Best Industry Initiative earlier this year.
Year 1 of the campaign focused on building the website, www.vitaminDandme.org, that serves as the online mainstay and research hub of the program, and outreach to millions of consumers aged 50 and older who were most concerned about their risk of contracting COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic.
Year 2 shifted the focus to healthcare practitioners, primarily dietitians, who could amplify our message through their direct interactions with consumers.
Our current funders have suggested that Year 3 may target (subject, of course to the direction of our task force) other healthcare practitioners, like pharmacists and nurse practitioners, and continue our outreach to dietitians, with the message that emerging research continues to support the critical role of vitamin D in a healthy immune system and potential protection in COVID-19, Long COVID, and perhaps, other respiratory conditions—with continued evaluation of the ongoing publication of research examining this relationship.
We kindly ask that your company donate generously if possible before the year’s end. Please keep in mind:
- This program is being conducted out of the CRN Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, that allows any contribution to be considered a tax-deductible charitable donation; and
- While we are asking for your pledge commitment within the next three weeks, we can invoice you either immediately (if you want to allocate the funding to your FY2022 budget), or invoice you for payment in Q1 of 2023, if you prefer to be billed in next year’s budget.
Please consider this program an excellent use of your company’s research and philanthropy budgets. We are asking you to dig deep and provide support for this program to benefit your company and the industry. For small companies, we are requesting donations of $5,000 or greater; for large companies, we are requesting donations of $10,000 or greater. However, all donations are helpful, and we appreciate whatever investment you can make in the initiative. Please contact Erin Storer directly with your donation amount and timing (Q4/2022 or Q1/2023). Thank you immensely for your thoughtful consideration and generous response.
Warm regards,
Steve Mister
President & CEO
Council for Responsible Nutrition