Project Compassion

Project Compassion creates community and provides support for people living with serious illness, caregiving, end of life and grief.

As people live with a diagnosis, go through treatment, move into survivorship or journey through end of life, Project Compassion helps people have the resources, support, and hope they need to live life to the fullest every day through the following initiatives:

• Volunteer Support Teams provide practical, emotional, and spiritual support for people who need help with caregiving so individuals and families will not have to cope alone. Using a team approach, community volunteers pool their talents, creativity, and time to offer much more caregiving support than one volunteer can provide alone. This service is offered at no cost to the recipients. Teams are created in partnership with more than 75 community groups and organizations. In 2008, Project Compassion helped create Circles of Care, a new partnership with UNC Medical School, the Community Health Coalition and local cancer centers to create Support Teams for African Americans living with advanced cancer. Since 2002, over 200 volunteer Support Teams with 1,400 volunteers have provided 48,000 hours of volunteer support for 550 individuals.

• Workshops, events, tools, information and referrals help people gain the knowledge and support they need to care for themselves and for others. Engaging events, resources and help people with the physical, emotional, spiritual, and practical aspects of serious illness, caregiving, end of life, and grief. Over 2500 individuals participate in community engagement events, request resources, information and referral annually.

• Advance Care Planning events and resources help people understand and communicate end-of-life care choices so that their wishes will be honored and relationships strengthened. Project Compassion helps people anticipate future health care choices, talk with family members, health care providers, attorneys, and clergy about end of life decisions, and put decisions in writing. Project Compassion helps over 1500 people annually with health care decisions.

• Patient Advocacy workshops and resources help patients, caregivers, students in health professions, community members and leaders develop skills and confidence in patient advocacy, advance care planning and organ/tissue donation through “Finding Your Voice.” Piloted in 2008 with Tiffany Christensen and Sick Girl Speaks, this new initiative educated over 1000 participants in year one. In 2009, Finding Your Voice will expand statewide.

Project Compassion partners with national organizations to spread our mission of creating community across the United States:

• The Support Team Network: Project Compassion is the national leadership training center for Support Team Network, offering team leadership conference and materials across the U.S.

• The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) and the Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life (DICEOL): Project Compassion has partnered with NHPCO and DICEOL to create and publish It’s About How You Live: Hospices and End of Life Care Coalitions Engaging Faith Communities (NHPCO) and The Unbroken Circle: A Toolkit for Congregations around Illness, End-of-Life and Grief. (DICEOL), coming in March, 2009.

Project Compassion has received national recognition from numerous sources, including:

• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Selected as a model caregiving and end-of-life program
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Featured James L. Brooks as 1 of 5 emerging leaders nationally
• Sunday New York Times: Featured Passing on Thoughtfully in the financial section of the New York Times
• National Council on Aging: Selected as a model program for seniors
• Lance Armstrong Foundation: Spotlighted as an innovative community program for teens

Donor directed funds and organizational grants from the Triangle Community Foundation have been key to the success of Project Compassion since our inception in 2000. As we continue building community to support people living with illness, caregiving, end of life and grief, we deeply appreciate your partnership and support.