2014: The Year in Review December 31, 2014 by Lauren Eva 2014 has come to an end and what a year it has been! We can’t help but look back and reflect on all the changes, including the ups and downs, 2014 brought to us. One of the biggest happenings of the year was our rebranding from the NephCure Foundation to NephCure Kidney International (affectionately known as NKI). As we officially expanded our vision and focused our priorities, we also changed leadership, and welcomed Mark Stone to the role of acting Chief Executive Officer. Under the umbrella of our new identity, we launched the new NKI website, www.nephcure.org. We are thrilled to continue to get feedback from YOU that the site is easy to navigate, informative, and appealing. Keep your comments and suggestions coming! Along with the website launch, we simultaneously released our updated logo and brand. What could be more exciting than all that? Ringing in our new identity, quite literally, during the ceremonious ringing of the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on August 15. Internally, we worked smarter – and harder – throughout the year to roll out new programs and update current offerings in the hopes we would better serve you, our community. Highlights include: Reimagining and reformatting our Lunch and Learns. Now called Community Cafes, we’ve condensed and streamlined the timeframe, while also allowing for more time for attendees to interact and ask questions. We are excited to offer more Cafes than ever before in 2015. Envisioning and launching a brand new NephSpace, our online support community for patients, caregivers, family members, and friends of those suffering from Nephrotic Syndrome on a more robust, user-friendly platform. Stop by and say Hi! With your help, our launch of STAND UP & BE COUNTED through social media raised $12,000 in two weeks. Give yourselves a HUGE round of applause. In the fall, we premiered CureMakers, our monthly-giving membership program and welcomed many new members to the NKI family For the first time EVER we held a 24-hour giving campaign on Giving Tuesday, November 25. On that day, each donation made was matched, enabling us to fundraise more than $34,000 in one day. Affirming our commitment to patient-powered research we launched the NephCure Kidney Network (NKN), NephCure’s patient-powered research network, which is a registry of data donated by patients with the diseases that cause primary Nephrotic Syndrome. NKI also provided funding of the CureGN consortium, and presentation of the NKI patient-powered research roadmap during Kidney Week in Philadelphia, Pa. You can now learn more about clinical studies near you with our new, interactive Clinical Research map on www.nephcure.org. Our philosophy and methods involving community fundraising have shifted from a walk-centric model to one that focuses on celebrating the individualism of each family, creating different types of events based on YOUR wants and needs. Our model will now stand to offer fun, soul enriching experiences and foster a sense of community, creating the best environment to raise funds to accelerate finding new treatments and ultimately, a cure. We will sustain this through 2015 with the addition of full-time, regional directors strategically located throughout the US. We celebrated many successful events throughout 2014, including walks, nephletes-sponsored events, community events too numerous to mention, co-hosting the Podocyte meeting in Freiburg, Germany, and another amazing year at the Pig Jig in Tampa, Florida and Countdown to a Cure in NYC. As we look to 2015 and beyond, we look forward to expanding to include new events across the US and internationally. As we bid goodbye to 2014 and welcome 2015 with open arms, we want to say thank you. It is because of you, our patients, caregivers, families and friends, and your constant tenacity in facing adversity, that we are pleased to embrace change. You inspire us. We can’t do this without you. We look forward to continuing this journey with you. Happy New Year!