Wherever you are on the caregiving journey, you may be wondering how you can help the fight to end Alzheimer’s in a bigger sense. Many people become Alzheimer’s Advocates when their caregiving journey ends… caring for a loved one with Alzheimer’s is a life-changing pursuit.

If you’re considering donating your time or money, the best place to start is with a little personal homework. Ask yourself these questions:

- Do you want to help other caregivers, or would you rather aid Alzheimer’s patients themselves?
- Do you want to aid scientific research? (Any organization that claims to do research should be able to provide you with the details on how the donated funds are used for its research.)
- Do you want to donate to caregiver impact, research on care alternatives, or research on related disorders such as vascular dementia?
- Would you be comfortable leading a support group for caregivers?
- Do you want to donate time as well as money? This can help extend funds for your favorite charities.
- Would you want to give your time by volunteering in a memory unit, or by visiting individual Alzheimer’s patients?
- Do you want a monetary donation to be applied regionally or nationally?

With these questions answered, I would recommend starting with the Alzheimer’s Association (which you can find at www.alz.org) and Alzheimer’s Foundation (at www.alzfdn.org). Visit your local Area Agency on Aging (just go to http://www.n4a.org/), because some of the grants they facilitate need matching funding to provide support for an Alzheimer’s patient and caregiver, or to help with medical or research studies.

There are many other research organizations that just look at specific aspects of Alzheimer’s disease and its many related disorders. Get specific with your website searches; instead of “Alzheimer’s,” search for donation or volunteer opportunities related to stroke and vascular dementia, Lewy Body Dementia, or others. You’ll find that there are a lot of choices!

You may even want to check with your local medical school, or any memory center to see what they need to make their programs possible. Find out what the philosophy, funding, and purpose of an organization is, and determine how it fits into your vision and where you feel you can make the most difference in accordance with your goals. There are endless possibilities for volunteerism, as well as a great need for money.